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t UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, f 



OUR COUNTRY, 



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BY REV. B.V/mORRIS, A . M 



PASTOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 



OF 



RISING SUN, INDIANA. 




LAWRENCEBURGH: 

PRINTED EY JOHN 5. IUU 



J 848. 



■\ 



EXPLANATORY NOTE. 



The following Discourses were delivered by the Author, to his own Congregation 
in the ordinary course of his pastoral duties. The first — "On the Designs of (Jo J in 
raising up the American Nation" — was delivered on Sabbath, the 4th of July. 1847, 
that Sabbath being the anniversary of American Independence. The second — "On 
the true Elements of National Greatness and Growth"— was prepared, as appropriate, 
for the Sabbath preceding the 4th of July, 1043. The third— "On the Integrity 
and Preservation of our Republican Institutions" — was prepared a« suitable to 
Thanksgiving Day, appointed by the civil authorities of Indiana, and was 
preached on Thanksgiving day, November, 25th 1847. At the time of their 
delivery several intelligent members of the Author's congregation desired to see 
them in print. During the past summer the first two Discourses were repeated in 
the city of Madison, in Rev. Mr. Curtis' church, and several highly respectable and 
intelligent gentlemen who heard them there, addressed a note to the Author, re- 
questing a copy of each for publication. Under the3e circumstances Ih 
are published and presented to the public. The topics discussed are of vital im- 
portance to every American ; and the Author most firmly believes are appropriate 
to the Pulpit, and meet the approbation of the God of Nations and of men.— 
Reader, HEAD WITH A MIND FREE FROM PREJUDICE, AND JUDGE FOR I 
SELF. 



& 

m FIRST DISCOU 

US 



DESIGNS OF GOD IN RAISING UP THE AMERICAN NATION. 

"A little one shall bacome a thousand, mi a small one a strong- nation: I the 
ord will hasten it in his time."— Isaiah i.x, xxu. 

Every event has its moral history. Unseen results are often con- 
cealed in the seeds of things. The germ is the life-starting power of 
a growth — ever onward, and ever unfolding. The moral destinies 
of the globe may be— often are— condensed into the compass of mi- 
nute events. Shadows which pass unnoticed over the dial plate of the 
world, are often the prophetic forerunners of events, that throw their 
mighty influences into the future history of the world, and create a 
projecting force that will move every spring in the machine of uni- 
versal society. The most sagacious foresight and wisdom are baffled 
by new, unexpected, and far-reaching results, that flow from events 
of utter insignificence, thought to be so at their occurrence. The 
progress of man, of the world, in its march of improvement, runs ahe&d 
of human expectations, and the hope of those who may be watching 
the movements of the world's history, is falsified by results that rev- 
olutionize the great interests of society. These events, which are the 
projecting promontories of future light, and hope, and progress, are 
evolved, too, by the slightest causes. An atom may be the base of 
the most lofty mountain. A rill may be the origin of a thousand riv- 
ers,— the point where an ocean may begin, and widen till it encom- 
passes the earth. The lofty oak, that proud and magnificent King of 
the forest, stands on the fibres of an acorn. Such at least is the ba- 
sis and construction of moral, ot civil, of religious progress. The 
great temple has a foundation on a grain of sand. The first stone 
on which the foundation was begun, was small in dimensions, and 
ill-shapen, perhaps, in form ; yet it leads to a rich quarry of granite, 
or of marble, on which the great social edifice of future ages rested. 



Around these events, too, cluster a future history, rich in histori- 
cal recollections, pregnant with actsof national renown, brillia 
achievements, and decisive in their power in giving a rapid future 
growth to every great interest of society. The world's destiny, then , 
hinges on these small events. A new era, full of future promise, 
freighted with immense treasures of wealth, will thus be drawn from 
an unexpected quarter on the world ; and from that era the world 
will date, in progress and improvement, a fresh starting point. This 
is the true past history of the world. These are the moral mile-posts, 
planted in the great track of time, by which we can ascertain the 
original causes, and measure human progress. 

The philosophy of history, marked by such features, is but the re- 
vealed philosophy of a Divine Providence. It leaves the manifest 
imprints of God. Every page, every event, has this imprimatur, — 
this is the Providence of God. Any other philosophy would leav.* 
darkness on every page of the world's history, and involve human 
progress and destiny in a chaos, wild and inexplicable. 

The grandeur of God is thus evolved, and made transparent in hu- 
man history. These events point with unerring certainty to God , 
and give prophetic hope for the future. These views find a striking 
confirmation in the origin, progress and evolving scenes of our own 
National History. 

The year 1380 consummated an event of unparalleled interest 
and importance. That event, though small in itself, was one that 
started a train of influences which resulted in the establishment of a 
a new Empire, and in the religious revolution of another. The Scrip- 
tures had, for ages, been concealed from the mass of the people by 
the Pope, in keeping them in the Latin language — a language not 
understood by the common people. Charles Wickliffe, in the year 
1380, gave the first full edition of the Bible, to the people in an Eng- 
lish translation. This translation poured light from a pure fountain 
on the minds of the English nation, and infused the free spirit 
of a purer Christianity, and a more ardent love for rational liberty, 
into the public mind. The result was, the reformation of England 
from Popery, and the establishment of a National Protestant Religion 
by an act of Parliament, with Henry VIII as its nominal Head. Af- 
ter his death, his son, Edward VI, was crowned King, and during 
his reign, the principles of Protestantism progressed, and religion 
became purer. This reign was signalized as the beginning of two 
great parties among the friends of Protestantism, called the Conform- 
ists and Non-conformists. The controversy arose in reference t 
wearing certain garments, the surplice, the cap, &c.,in Divine Ser- 



vice. The Nonconformists rejected these, because it was still re- 
taining the superstitious customs of Popery, and doing an injury to 
truth. For this refusal they were fined, and thrust from their minis- 
terial office. The reign of Mary succeeded, which was distinguish- 
ed tor the re-establishment of Popery, and for the infamous and bloody 
persecution which she poured upon the pious Protestants. 

Her reiga was short. She was succeeded by Elizabeth. Under 
her auspices the Protestant religion was permanently established, 
and from that period gained an increasing ascendency, from which 
it has never waned. Yet she was vain,, and had a love for show, 
and compelled the non-conforming ministers to wearsome of the vest- 
ments of Popery, and these refusing, were fined, imprisoned and de- 
posed. This inquisition over conscience was the germ of great 
events. Though small, yet from these seeds of piety sprung a race 
of men, nobler in moral growth and stature than the world had ev- 
er seen. These Puritans, so called by way of reproach, separated 
from the National Church of England in 1566 ; and from that time, a 
sines of most atrocious and relentless persecutions followed the Pu- 
ritans, until many of them sought an asylum in this Western World, 
where, 1.6 20, their pious footsteps made the first track of freedom of 
civilization, and Christianity on the Rock of Plymouth. Every event, 
w.e said,, has its moral history, and the history of that event, which 
resulted in the birth- of a great nation, is fraught with two great facts 
which ought to be engraven on the heart of every American. The 
first is this: that the Bible, translated by Wickliffe, was the starting 
point and the projecting power that infused the pure spirit of Chris- 
tianity into the soul of English christians. This spirit was carried 
into the purer hearts of the Puritans, and they, by the guidance and 
power of this spirit, crossed, the trackless ocean, and here planted 
the first seeds of a new empire, so that the English Bible is the foun- 
der of English and American Liberty. The other fact is this : that 
the genius of a pure Protestant Christianity, free from all vestiges of 
Popery, was the accompanying fact that attended the birth of our 
nation , and this spirit has infused itself into, all our social, civil, and 
political Institutions. 

It is owing to the existence and presence of these facts, that we 
find, in our own case, a national confirmation of the truth of our 
text: "A little one shall become a thousand and a small one a strong 
nation." For the Lord, by a series of most wonderful concurring 
events, has hastened it. 

In view of these facts, it is a question of no ordinary interest, — 
What are the great Designs of God in thus raiding up the American, 



Nation! What mission has our country marked out for her, by the 
clearly drawn lines of Providence? What have been, what are yet 
to be, the rich achievements of the genius of our free institutions, 
on the theatre of the world, and in moulding the character of corning 
eras'! We may not unfold the book of destiny. We would not pry 
into the purposes of Divine Providence. But God is in human histo- 
ry. The imprints of his majestic footsteps are deeply traced, peculiar- 
ly/ marked, on. the entire records of our National History. The inter- 
pretation of the hand-writing is, we believe, intelligible. We can 
and may read the interpretation thereof. 

In presenting some of the more prominent Designs of (rod, in the 
establishment of the American nation, we remark — 

I. THAT ONE DESIGN WAS TO EXHIBIT AND DEMONSTRATE THAT FORM 07 
CIVIL GOVERNMENT BEST ADAFTSD FOR HUMAN PROGRESS. 

There can be no issue joined as to the question of fact in human 
progress. This is man's destiny, — a destiny decreed by the wise and 
immutable fiat of God. In this respect man is the image and coun- 
terpart of God. The grandeur and moral glory ol God consists in 
the progress with which He reveals His Character to man. We mean 
not to affirm that the essential personal character of God admits of 
progress in any form. But to man, standing on a prominent point 
of observation, there is, in the character of God, to the eye of the ob- 
server, a real progress. His nature, the action of his Infinite Attri- 
butes, are revealing, at all points, some new manifestations ; and 
thus God does make progress in giving man a knowledge of Himself 
and His Government. This is a grand law of the Universe. It is 
that which is seen by every observing eye. The same law, apparent 
in the essential character of God, and real in His Universe, is a law 
of man's nature. If it were not, man would be an exception to ev- 
ery other being and object. 

But progress is accomplished by appropriate instrumentalities. — 
The question then arises as to the nature and adaption of these 
means by which progress may be most successfully effected. With- 
out entering into any examination of that extended range of thought 
that here opens, we state, under the fullest conviction of its' truth., 
that no instrumentality is so great, so effectual, in the accomplish- 
ment of man's progress as Civil Government. This is a demonstra- 
ted problem in the philosophy of progress. God has, in the econom- 
ic arrangement of His Universe, selected government as the most 
powerful agent in the advancement of his creatures in improvement 
The progress of the Universe is based on government, and the great 
reason why there is such admirable and rapid progress in the Empire . 



of God, is, that government is the great promoter of progress. Des- 
troy government and you defeat progress. 

But the question has relations to human progress, immense and in- 
timate, and the solution of this great problem, the arrangement and 
establishment of a civil Government, best adapted for human pro- 
gress, has engaged the profoundest thoughts of politicians and civil- 
ians. And civil Government has been a profound subject of study , 
because Government and human progress are identical. So per- 
fect and real are their identity, that the worst form ot civil govern- 
ment is infinitely preferable to none. 

Let us, then, raise the question, What is the best form ofcivil gov- 
ernment? Without examining the structure, the genius or the re- 
H\;!ta of the various theories and forms which have been projected, we 
may state that that form of Government is best adapted to human 
progress which secures the adoption of the best laws, gives to these 
laws an inviolable and an extensive power over man, and at the 
same time gives him, as an individual man, the largest liberty and 
the freest scope for the development of his powers. 

If government destroys the personal manhood of man ; if it check-: 
in, by the iron mandate of power, the free, natural, vigorous use of 
faculties and aspirations essential, in the very constitution of man. 
it counteracts human progress. Man, to be uuder the full tide of 
development and progress, must not lose his identity, his personality 
a.; a,r\i.n. There is a noble inspiration in the thought, in the feeling: 
I am a man ; I have an identity, a personality that constitutes me a 
being, not lost in Civil Government, but making Government itself 
feel — I am a man. This feeling will, in itself, make man grow into 
a manhood full of beauty and strength. It will exalt him to promi- 
nence; give him self-confidence ; a consciousness of accomplishing 
great things for himself, which will carry him up in the scale of im- 
provement. This is the grand idea and plan for the securement of 
i.;;rr.an progress, progress in every element of real greatness and true 
happiness. 

AH society, ali history, all the results of Civil Governments, where 
man, for centuries, has been crushed, are melancholy confirmations 
of the fact that, where the individual identity and manhood of 
man has been crushed, there society is stationary, and no progress 
made. The soul, the life-blood of man, is gone ; and you might as 
well hope that man would have a vigorous life after depletion by 
blood letting, as hope for progress where the per.-onal identity and 
manhood of individual man are destroyed. 

this fact in the philosophy of man, confirmed by the experience 



of all ages, of aJlstate&of Society, id a demonstration of the truth that 
civii government, to be most perfectly adapted to human progress, 
must recognize the fact of man's individual identity. Whilst Gov- 
ernment is to hold its universal, majestic power, over man, yet it 
mustdoso, so as to give the widest range for personal action and 
growth. The least that Government has to do with man as a person, 
and yet secure its action and end the better. Too much legis- 
lation, too many arrangements in Civil Government, are only to bind 
the free spirit, and cramp the natural elastic energies of the human 
sou!. Hence the freer you can leave man, and hold him under the 
government of rational law, the greater his progress in every ele- 
ment of growth. 

This is the simp'e construction of the government of God over 
man. He givest man the largest moral liberty, the amplest range of 
moral action, consistent with the stability of government, and the 
happiness of man. Under no lorm of human government is man 
so free as under the moral government of God. He has an ample- 
tude of free action sufficient to gratify his most boundless wishes. — 
This gives to man, in the Divine government, a field for illimitable 
growth and progress. This great element, this essential feature, 
must be incorporated into the organization and action of Giv.il Gov- 
ernment, to effect the mc<i rapid and sure progress. God. has set 
the copy — the obligation of imitation is on man. 

This imitation has been most perfect in the institution and action 
of our own CivilGovernment. In this respect it is unparalleled in 
the history of the world. It combines, in the greatest harmony, the 
supremacy of law with the greatest range of free action. The dis- 
tinguishing excellency of the civil government of the United States 
is, that it invests man with the attributes of man. It gives the hum- 
blest citizen a nobility of true manhood, worth more than all the 
trappings and insignia of a nobility b aged on wealth or hereditary 
ancestry. It is man, in the identity of his being, in his own intrin- 
sic worth that our Government recognizes. This imparts a life-infn- 
emg energy. This gives a lofty elevation to .each citizen, and secures 
that equity which is a marked feature in our Social and Civil condi- 
tion. This prohibits overgrown Monopolies, on the boily Politic, from 
crushing the blood out of the heart of the millions. This makes the 
great soul of the nation palpitate with a quickning enterprise, and 
pant for new achievements. It is this that gives, and has given, a 
progress to our Nation, as wonderful to the world as it is complimen- 
tary to the form of our civil Government. 

As a Nation, we are in the period of infancy. The flush of youth 



is scarcely gone. The mature and Giant form of National manhood 
has not yet come. But behold and admire our Progress. Where is 
the department of National growth and greatness untouched! On 
what field of National renown and enterprise has not progress plough- 
ed its deep wide furrow? Turn your eye to Social Progress, to 
Social elevation! Where, in Human History, where, on the map of 
the world, will you find the social condition of man so elevated, so 
happy, as in the United States'? We have great room for improve- 
ment. But, with all the deficiencies in our Social condition, no Na- 
tion on the Globe can compare with us. We are the young Daughter 
of Mother England ; yet we are, in Social Progress, in Social eleva- 
tion and purity, far ahead of Old England. Who would compare 
our Independent Yeomanry, in all points of Social condition, with 
the miserable condition of the Masses in Ireland, or the more eleva- 
ted condition of the people in England! In Social Progress, we 
have distanced in the race, the most favored Nation on the Globe. 

Mark our National Progress on the field of entei prize. Here are 
some of the brightest triumphs to the genius of our Institutions, and 
to the free, indomitable spirit of our countrymen. We have effect- 
ed a physical regeneration of the Nation in less than aGeneration. 
The first shovel of earth, dug by the hand of the Immortal DeWitt 
Clinton, from the Erie Canal, was but the beginning of a series of 
most splendid and gigantic achievement. It put a heart into enter- 
prise, that beai with quick and strong pulsations. That heart has 
thrown, with a tremendous projecting force, the blood of enterprise 
through every extremity of our Nation. It has dug 4000 miles oi 
Canal. It has built 5000 miles of Railroad. It has extended the 
channels of communication, through Post Roads, 144,000 miles, till 
our nation is girdled and intersected with these lines of intelligence. 
It has invented the Machine shop, and the Manufacturing establish- 
ment, till wealth has been immensely augmented, and caused our 
Nation to compete with all the Nations of the Globe. This spirit oi 
National enterprize has given us power and elevation at home; res- 
pect and admiration abroad. 

With this, mark our National Progress in Population and Territory. 
As a Nation, we began only seventy-five years ago, with three mil- 
lions of a Population. We now number twenty-two millions, and 
double our population every twenty-three years. If no counteract- 
ing causes prevent, at this ratio, the year 1900, a year which your 
children will see, will behold over a hundred millions of human be- 
ings, treading and living on the American Soil. Progress in Territo- 
ry has kept pace with Progress in Population. The limits of our 



10 

Territory, when we came into National existence, was small, in com- 
parison to what it is now. The wings of the American Eagle now 
stretch from the Atlantic, East, to the Pacific Ocean, West ; and it' 
Destiny fulfils the anticipations of many, will extend over Territory 
from North to South, till it includes the Western Hemisphere, and 
our Flag shall float over the whole of North and South America. 

Mark our national Progress In Science, and in Mental Culture. — 
The jeers of European Nations have lost their power, when they 
ask, Where is American Literature? or "What Poem has the genius 
of the American people Written.'' We are yet in the freshness of a 
National Literature. Yet here our Progress has been rapid. In the 
world of Science, our countrymen have performed deeds of brilliant 
achievement — such as has found them a niche in the Temple of Eng- 
lish and European Fame. The Literature of our Nation is endowed 
with manliness and vigor, and is not unworthy of the genius of our 
countrymen. Our Oiators and Statesmen, for solidity of attainments, 
for the elements of a true lofty eloquence, for comprehensiveness 
and power, from the first era of our national existence till the pres- 
ent, are not surpassed by any in the history of the world. The de- 
partment of Theology and Metaphysics, have kept progress with 
other features in our National Mental Culture. And here we can 
boast of as finished specimens of Pulpit Oratory and power as the 
world has ever seen. And not least, though last, is our progress in 
National Education. Our Universities, and Colleges, and Aacade- 
mies, and Free Schools, stand as noble Monuments to our progress 
in Mental Culture. 

Here is a brief Picture of our National Progress. And what has 
wrought out this series of splendid achievements'? What obvious 
agent has so multiplied the forces of our country, so that "A little one 
has become a thousand, and a small one a great Nation?" Has any- 
thing else accomplished it but the pre-eminent adaption of our Civil 
Government to promote Human Progress. The two grand elements 
in our Civil System, is to hold the supremacy of the law over our 
people, and at the same time give them the largest liberty for indi- 
vidual action; to make man make himself, and not Government the 
man; to give a personal identity toevery being that treads the Amer- 
ican Soil. This is the genius of our Civil Institutions, notwithstand- 
ing the existence of Slavery — which the moral force of the declara- 
tion of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the 
spirit of the age and Christianity, must, ultimately, sweep away. 

In view of all this, we can, without a forced interpretation, see a 
great benevolent design of God, in raising up the American Nation. 



11 

That design was to show, in our form of Civil Government, that man 
must be recognized as man; that government mu6t give play and en- 
couragement to the active energies of man, of all society, and this, 
in the most efficient manner, give progress to the moral and civil des- 
tinies of the world. 

II. A SECOND GRAND DESIGN WAS TO DEMONSTRATE THE CAPACITY OF MAN 
FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

The right of choice is inalienable. It is the richest legacy of God 
to man. This Divine'endowment was made for the highest purpose 
of man's existence, and is essential to the being and happiness of 
man. It is man's duty, his distinguishing prerogative to use it for all 
the true ends of life, and the good of Society. This prerogative has 
universal action. The ehoice of Civil Government is not an exception. 
Here, above all others, except on the subject of the eternal destiny 
of the soul, man ought and lias the right of choice. There may be 
circumstances in the condition of a people, which may render it, 
for a brief season, inexpedient -,o exercise the prerogative of choice. 
iTet expediency does not annul the right; nor impair its validity. 

What, in surveying human governments ior the pastsix thousand 
years, has been the one great object 1 Was it to respect, to vindi- 
cate, to establish this right in the hands of the people? Quite the 
contrary. It has been to crush it ; to usurp this right from those to 
whom it rightfully belongs, and invest it in one, or a few ; to make 
the Mass believe that they had no right in the choice of government, 
or of Civil Magistrates. This doctrine has been the popular doctrine 
of the world. It has robbed man of his Heaven-derived rights. It 
has made a mockery of Human Justice. It has turned the earth in- 
to a slaughter-house, where Human Victims have been sacrificed to 
Human Tyrants, and all the dearest rights of man slain in blood and 
butchery. In the progress of events, the free air of human liberty has 
found a little breathing place amidst the almost universal carnage of 
slaughtered rights. Heroes of patriotic inspiration have uplifted the 
Battle-Axe oi Freedom, and amidst the deafening yell of Tyrants, 
have proclaimed the right, the capacity of the human race for self- 
government. In long intervals of Human History, the Masses have 
given decisive symptoms, and made some noble struggles to be free, 
and to exercise the prerogative of self-government. But the heavy 
fo»t of the Tyrant's power has crushed the rising effort, and sunk 
them deeper into the abyss of Despotism. 

The time at last came when this right of the people to self-govern 
ment should be vindicated, and their capacity for it demonstrated.-— 
That lime was when God, by a concurrence of propitious Providen- 



12 

ces, laid the seeds of this mighty Nation in hearts too noble to be 
trampled upon; and too free to be fettered. The first movement in 
the great chain of events which ultimated in the establishment of a 
great Nation, had its origin in the desire and right of man for self- 
government, It was first asserted and maintained by arguments that 
baffled the logic of Civil and Spiritual Tyrants, in the person of the 
pious and patriotic WicklifFe, who seized upon that noble truth of 
Protestantism, that the people had a right to read the Scriptures them- 
selves; a truth which made him free, as well as the English Nation: 
the Non-conformists, on a still larger scale, re-confirmed the right of 
self-government, in religious matters, by refusing to sacrifice con- 
science and truth to the dogma of a superstitious tyranny. The 
completion of this advancing climax of moral glory, was reserved 
for the era of our own Revolution; when Patriots, fired with the 
quenchless flames of freedom, asserted, in a noble Declaration, the 
right of self-government, and against fearful odds, but with the God 
of Battles on their side, successfully established the great truth of 
man's capacity for self-government. 

The experiment is now in progress, and we have faith in God that 
He will carry it forward to a successful termination. This faith is 
based on clear indications, looming up with abroad conspicuity in 
the past History of the Ameriean Nation, that God designed in the 
mission of our country to demonstrate to Tyrants and the world, the 
Divine right ot man to self-government, and his capacity for it, — 
The great interests of humanity, the future Progress of the world, 
the cries of the crushed millions of earth, the nature of Divine Truth, 
and the full glories of human redemption, all demand that God should 
ca r ry forward the work, till all men shall believe in the doctrine of 
man's capacity for self-government. 

III. A THIRD GREAT OBJECT IN THE MISSION OF OUR NATION, UNDER GOD, IS 

TO DEMONSTRATE TO THE WORLD WHAT THE FREE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIANITY 

CAN ACCOMPLISH WITHOUT AN ALLIANCE WITH THE STATE. 

Marriages, without some measure of harmonious identity and suit- 
ableness, are prolific in all kinds of mischief. They breed broils; stir 
up strife ; dissever the cords of love, and subvert the very ends o' 
this Heaven-established Institution. The connection is evil and on 
ly evil continually. 

There is one marriage, however, more unnaturisl and more prolif 
ic in mischief than ail others. It is the marriage of Christianity with 
the State. Where the license was obtained, it is hard to tell. It was 
never obtained from the Court of Heaven. Who celebrated the nup 
tials, is not so difficult to decide. For no one but the Devil, or soma 



13 

authorized agent, would have had the effrontery, in violation of the 
expressed Statutes of God, to have said the ceremony, and consum- 
mated the unholy alliance. As it is illegal, and without the consent 
of Christianity, it is no violation of human or Divine law, to Divorce 
them as soon as possible. They ought forever to live apart. 

The evils of this unnatural connection are manifold and grievous, 
in number, their name is legion ; in character, they have every ele- 
ment of mischief. The history of this connection, is a record of re- 
sults, dishonoring to Christianity, and fatal to many of the higher in- 
terests of man. It has paralyzed the moral power of Christianity. — 
It has robbed the veins of the Gospel of its purest and healthiest 
• ood, and diminished to a vast extent its spiritual force. It has strip- 
ped Christianity of its dress of beautiful simplicity, and thrown 
around it the gaudy, pompous, flaunting court dress of the world ; it 
has made the Church dependent on the State, and poured a flood ol 
corrupting influences around the Sacred Altars of Religion and her 
Ministers. 

An alliance so fruitful in evil cannot but be hateful to God, as well 
as deeply injurious to the interests of the Church and State. And 
after the illegal marriage, we may well suppose that God would take 
measures to break the marriage contract, and have Christianity di> 
vorced from the State. This measure began in those incipient steps 
which in the great chain of Providence, had their ultimatum in the 
establishment of a Civil Government, with no Ecclesiastical or Hier- 
archical connection with the Church. Yet this divorce — mark it well 
— did not prevent the moral sap of Christianity Irom flowing into ev- 
ery fibre of the Tree of Liberty. It waters its roots, and spreads it- 
self into the trunk, the limbs, the leaves of that magnificent Tree, 
stretching its lofty branches over a New Continent. The divorce 
only broke off the Ecclesiastical connection. The tree could not live 
after it was girdled by the axe of infidelity, and no juices from Chris- 
tianity to flow up and keep it alive. 

To demonstrate this great Christian Problem, God, in the arrange- 
ments of His Providence, selected the American Nation, and most 
nobly has the result attested the wisdom of God in effecting this di- 
vorce. Here the Church is not dependent on the State for patronage. 
Christianity is not sustained by the arm of Civil power. The Civil 
.Magistrates are not, ipso facto, either real or nominal Ministers in 
the Church. The State cannot invade the Divine prerogatives of 
the Church ; nor the Church those of the State. Yet there is a most 
beautiful and beneficial harmony between them both, in thus agreeing 
to live apart. 

2 



14 

And mark the result. American Christian fty has a freer spirit, n 
more practical and efficient range of action, than in any other Na- 
tion. It has thrown off those heavy incumbrances that marred its 
native beauty, and clogged its power. It has given Christianity a 
new aggressive power. It has clothed it with a pioneering energy. 
It has breathed into it a quicker, a freer, a healthier life. It has ac- 
complished a thousand-fold more for the State, for the Country, for 
the Civilization and Christianization of the world. It has gathered 
moie in money, and other necessary resources for the final storming 
and capture of the world from the Devil, than in any country where 
Christianity has been allied to the State. Christianity, unsupported 
by the State, simply bv the free, voluntary contributions of the peo- 
ple, has raised up a body of Clergymen, which, in the language of a 
living Statesman, "are shown to the honor of their own country, 
and to the astonishment of the Hierarchies ot'Europe ; that it is prac- 
ticable, in free Governments, to raise and sustain a body of Clergy- 
men; — which, for devotedneas to their sacred calling, for purity of 
life and character, for Learning, Intelligence and Piety, and that 
Wisdom which cometh down from above, is inferior to none, and su- 
perior to most others, by voluntary contributions. The great truth 
has been thus proclaimed and proved,— a truth which, in time to 
come, will shake all the Hierarchies of Europe, — that the voluntary 
support of such a Ministry, under free institutions, is a practii 
idea." 

And the influence of our National example has become contaj 
Scotland has, within four years past, crossed the Red Sea, and come 
from under the yoke of State Bondage. Scotland has her Free 
Church, and her Free Christianity. Under the unfettered genius of 
a Free Christianity, the people, the poor people, of Scotland, have 
built 775 Temples for the worship of God. They have built their 
Colleges, and organized a grand system of Free Schools. They have 
raised 7,000,000 dollars for religious and benevolent purposes. They 
have built their Parsonages, and supported their Ministers with a lib 
eral hand ; and whilst the churches supported with Government r»o- 
ney are deserted, and the Ministers who bear the insignia of Queen 
Victoria's authority, preach to "a beggarly account of empty pews* 1 
> — the Churches of Scotland, free as the air of Heaven, are crowded 
with devout and solemn worshippers, who are fed from the lips ol 
able, free, and eloquent Ministers. (Put alas! one voice that rang 
with an almost divine eloquence, has been hushed, recently, in death, 
A Prince in Israel, and a Prince of all Preachers, has fallen. He whose 
genius was comprehensive and brilliant; he who could, by his ee-r= 



15 

ar-hic and persuasive eloquence, electrify and chain listening thou- 
-.-Mids; he who defended Christianity with arguments overwhelming 
and convincing, and revealed, with mastei skill, the riches of Re- 
deeming Grace; lie who plead for the poor, and preached for the 
poor-; he whose fame is world-wide, and who has left a munificent 
legacy to the Church and to the world, in his pious life, in his nolle 
character, in his in-comparable eloquence, is dead. His great spirit — 
the master spirit of the Free Church of Scotland — lias fled to its God. 
Thomas Chalmers is gone, and the Church deeply mourn his loss.) — 
rkit to return. Not only has Scotland felt the power of our example 
in divorcing Christianity from the State; hut England herself, the 
seat of this Dragon power, the Protestant Nation above all others 
cursed with this union, is now heaving with a mighty agitation on 
this subject. There are currents on the surface, and deep, resistless 
undercurrents now at work in England, which will ere long divorce 
Christianity from the State, and give England a Free Christianity. — 
And the whole of Europe is now agitated with this great subject, 
and is giving unmistakable signs that soon every Nation will rend 
asunder all Ecclesiastical connection with the State. What a mis- 
sion for our nation! What a grand Moral Design do we here behold 
in the Providence of God in raising up the Americen Nation to show 
what a Free Christianity can accomplish without the State. 

IV. A FOURTH DESIGN OF GOD IN RAISING UP THE AMERICAN NATION, WAS 
To BRING OUT A RACE OF MEN FITTED NOT MERELY FOR THE EXIGENCIES OF 
THE TIMES, BUT TO BE LIGHTS AND MODELS IN THE TRACK OF FUTURE AGES. 

One age borrows light from another. The future receives its color- 
ing, in no small degree, from the past. There is a coalescing influ- 
ence — a blending together of the spirit of all past ages into the one 
succeeding. In this way wisdom accumulates ; light becomes bright- 
er ; one generation improves on another, and the world goes on in 
us sublime movements, to higher and higher points of elevation. — 
This result flows from a combination of influences. National spirit, 
whether it is civic or warlike \ national taste in Literature, in the 
Fine Arts, in the discovery and practical application of Sciences, in 
the habits of the people, the form of Government, the character of 
its pursuits, with various other causes, operate to form the combina- 
tion of influences which are carried by the Stream of Time into the 
future, and give an impression to every succeeding age. 

Hut there is still another result, greater than either — greater than all 
combined, perhaps. It is the influence created by, and flowing from 
the example and life of Pure and illustrious men. Indeed it is the 
presence of their spirit that invests all history with its interest, charm 



IS 

and philosophy. It is the power of their controlling genius that gives 
to the records of past Nations their moral grandeur and importance. 
What is a Jewish History worth without the presence of a Moses! — 
What the Antedeluvian Record, if Noah and Enoch are gone 1 ! What 
is Grecian History worth, if you divest it of Leonides, of Themisto- 
cles, of Aristides, Socrates and Demosthenes'] What Roman, if you 
take from it the illustrious lives and examples ol the Gracchi, and of 
Cicero and Cincinnatus? What is the history of Scotland good for 
when the presence ot Bruce, and Wallace, and John Knox, and Thom- 
as Chalmers are gone? What is English History valuable for, when 
Sydney, and Wickliffe, and Huss, and Milton, and Shakspeare, with 
all the influence created by them, is gone] What would American 
History be worth, without the characters and lives of Washington, 
and Franklin, and their illustrious Compeers'? History is in a great 
measure, the record of men and their actions. It is the reflecting 
Mirror of their examples and lives. 

And for what? Is it merely to control the destinies of present e- 
vents? — to wield and master the elements of the age in which they 
livel This they do. But this is not the whole of their Mission. It 
is to lift up their lofty columns of light for future ages ; to stand as 
land-marks on the Cliffs of Time, and to measure the progress of the 
world in improvement. It is to create new influences for the guid- 
ance of future Generations, and new elements to be worked into the 
future Edifice of Civil and Religious Liberty. Longfellow presents 
this truth in these beautiful words : 

"Lives of great men all remind us, '-Footsteps which perhaps another. 
We can make our lives sublime, Sailing' o'er life's stormy main. 

And, departing, leave behind in, A forlorn and ship-wrecked brother 
Footprints on the sands of Time. Seeing, may take heart again. " 

With this fact in view, you can see how grand the Design of God 
in raising up, in the different eras, men illustrious and great, and 
wise and patriotic, who were to be. the guiding stars to those who 
will follow them, and whose example and influence shall live in 
the future. 

Our Nation presents two eras, distinguished for the appearance 
and action of a race of men, celebrated in history, and distinguished 
for elements of real greatness. The first is the era of our Pilgrim 
Fathers, who laid the foundation-stone of the American Nation. — 
These men were nurtured under peculiar influences. They grew 
up to manhood under the special education of God himself. Hence, 
the base ot their characters was laid on Christianity, and the elements 
of a Bible Faith formed the towering superstructure. They had no 



oilier Gods before the living Jehovah. They studied no other book, 
comparatively, but the Bible. This was the Magna Charta, of their 
rights and principles. This made them the purest patriots the world 
ever saw ; this gave them a Divine sagacity in political matters ; this 
impelled them when they laid the Corner Stone of this great Con- 
federacy of Nations, to plant it on the Bible; this imbued the Civil Gov- 
ernments of the Puritans with the doctrines and spirit of Christiani- 
ty. This formed their noble systems of Education ; this impressed 
those immortal features on every department of Society, to be re-pro- 
duced in every succeeding age. These men were men of iron nerve ; 
of religious faith; of wise forecaste ; of stern resolve. They feared 
nothing but the displeasure of God ; sought nothing but His will. 

The second era in our National History, renowned for the rising no 
of a race of men, celebrated for their civic virtues, and heroic char- 
acters, was that of the Revolution. They were men distinguished 
for a singular fitness for the work which God called them to begin 
and finish. The Intellectual, Moral, Religious and Heroic elements 
which formed their characters, gave them a rare qualification to do 
and dare for their country. The world has never seen so bright a 
galaxy of noble lights shining in one era, and clustering in the Hem- 
isphere of one ppriod. Their creation, their fitness, their achieve- 
ments, their Giant intellects, and moral symmetry of characterise with 
a grandeur and a brightness unparalleled in the history of men and 
ofdisinte rested patriotism. They sacrificed all for the glorious cause 
of Freedom. Men of heroic faith, they believed in the right and capa- 
city of man for self-government. Distinguished for comprehensive- 
ness of views, they recorded it in the face of Tyrants and of Mar- 
tyrdom, that "all men are, and of right ought to be, free." Imbued 
with extraordinary firmness, they, in a manner illustrious to them- 
es, and hopeful for the gre.it interests of man, vindicated and 
established that primary truth, the property ofunivereal man. Wise 
in council, sagacious and deep-sighted in civil and political fore- 
it, they planted the institutions of a new Nation on Freedom 
and Equality, and so constructed a Civil Government as to give the 
. . ippiest adaptation for individual enterprise and Human Progress. 

Better than all, they were men trained and formed by the genius 
pure Christianity ; — they were the noble representatives of a 
pious Puritan Ancestry. The Bible was their guide Book, its truths 
the elements of their characters. It is a fact worthy of record, hon- 
orable to the memory of female piety, that the fifty-six Heroes, 
who affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence, an •;. 
of immortality, were trained by pious mothers, brought up under 

2* 



18 

Christian influences. This was the germ of their greatness. This 
imbued their characters with a patriotism purer than the world has 
ever seen, before or since. This was the guiding-star in their desti- 
ny, and shed over their pathway, and the achievements of their 
lives, a halo of glory that will increase till time shall be no more. 

Who can measure the Giant-dimensions of John Hancock, whose 
signature on that Scroll of Fame and Freedom, is a type of his 
greatness of soul, his free and daring spirit! Who can value the ser- 
vices of Samuel and John Adams, whose ardent impetuous enthusi- 
asm infused fire and soul into the very heart of that great Revolu- 
tion? Who can estimate the overshadowing greatness of Thomas 
Jefferson, whose love of Liberty, who?e political philosophy and great 
genius rose in calmness, and shone with power over the storm of the 
Revolution,, and in the serene councils of the Civil History of that 
period? And Benjamin Franklin, "whose mind could pluck a plume 
from the lightning's wing, and silence the roaring of the British Li- 
on" — who can tell the influence of that great intellect, — great in 
common sense, in political wisdom in Science and Philosophy, in the 
creation of that Revolution, and that Civil Constitution — both the 
admiration of the world? Who can tell the value of the heroic spir- 
it of Dr. Witherspoon, a Patriot and a Presbyterian Preacher, who, 
on the morning of the 4th of July, when the Declaration was read, 
and which made some of the bravest hearts hesitate, rose, and with 
a soul glowing with Liberty, and with more than Spartan heroism, 
said : "There is a tide in the affairs of men, a nick of time. We per- 
ceive it now before us. That noble instrument on your table, which 
insures immoitality to its author, should be subscribed this very mor- 
ning by every member present. Although these gray hairs must soon 
descend to the Tomb, I would infinitely rather they should be sent 
there by the hand of the Executioner, than to desert, at this crisis, 
the cause of my country ! " The appeal was electric. It brought to 
his feet John Hancock, who walked with a Patriot tread, and with a 
Patriot hand affixed his name. All followed. The great transac- 
tion was finished, and the 4th of July baearne a Festival day of Free- 
dom ! 

I cannot here forbear to note a fact, of imperishable record in the 
history of our country, a fact worthy of remembrance just at this 
time. The fact is this. That no body of men rendered more effec- 
tive and patriotic services to the cause of the American Revolution, 
than Christian Clergymen. They shouldered their muskets and 
fought in the battle's hottest strife. They sent forth their rousing 
appeals to the Sons of Freedom. And to a Presbyterian Preacher, 



19 

are we indebted, in all probability, for that Charter of our rights, the 
Declaration of Independence 5 and in every just cause Christian Min- 
isters have nobly rallied around the standard of Liberty. And well 
might the greatest living Statesmen of our Nation affirm, "nothing 
that has been said or done in favor of the interests of Universal Man, 
has done this country more credit at home and abroad, than the Char- 
acter, Learning and Piety of Clergymen. 

To give the climax, and finish the Pyramid of the great spirits of 
the Revolution, we cannot fail to see the collossal stature of him 
"who was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
countrymen." Washington was the Master Genius of the Revolu- 
tion. His own mathless Character impressed itself, with an impress 
of immortality, an that noble period and struggle for Freedom. His 
spirit controlled the Storm and mastered the Elements. Washington 
— his name is the synonime of Freedom., the world over ; his deeds 
are his monuments. 

These are the men, and such their character, who appear as th 
controlling spirits on the theatre of action. In these two remarka- 
ble eras, in American History, and as the spirit and type of one ag« 
is transmitted 10 another, we see what a vast flood of pious and pat- 
riotic influences have been created and handed down to future gen- 
erations, by the heroes of these two epochs. More than two hundred 
years have been unrolled, from the annals of Time, since the Pilgrim 
Fathers planted in the American soil the seeds of this great Repub- 
lic ; yet the spirit, the institutions, the results of the Puritans still live 
c,nd promise a richer harvest. Three-quarters of a century have 
passed since the Patriots of the Revolution first struggled for Free- 
dom ; though they in person are gone, yet their memories, their no- 
ble acts, their free souls, still live, and live to re-kindle the fires of 
patriotism on millions of hearts who pay an annual Pilgrimage to 
their tombs, and with grateful remembrances, revere their memories. 

And who can limit the power of those influences created by these 
noble-hearted men I Will they not, be lights and models in the un-. 
traveled track of the future - ! Will not their spirits live and be re- 
produced in the cause of Freedom and in Free Institutions in future 
ages! Will not the genius of their lives, the power of their exam ■ 
pie, the patriotc fragrance of their characters, spread over continents 
around the world, "and operate unspent '!" This grand result will 
take place— has already to a large extent taken place — and in it we 
see one of the. great designs of God in the establishment of the Amer- 
ican Nation, where '.'Man is the nobler growth our clime supplies. 1 '' 



20 

v. A EIFXH DESIGN OF GOO, IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE AMERICAN NA- 
TION, WAS TO INTRODUCE FKEE CIVIT. GOVERNMENTS OVER THE WORLD. 

This, we believe, is the civil destiny ot our race, and this destiny 
involves every other element ot" hope and regeneration. Tyrants 
cannot reign forever. Civil Despotisms will not hold an eternal pow- 
i-i over the world, God made man to be free, and free he will be. — 
A favorite Philosophy of some men is destiny. Destiny, they say, 
indicates the path and the future triumphs of our Free Institutions, 
But what is the destiny of the Human Race 1 Is it not for universal 
freedom! Has nut God, the only Arbiter and Director of Destiny, 
designed all men for the enjoy mont of Free Civil Governments! It 
would be an impeachment of Divine Justice to affirm the contrary. 
It would falsify man's creation to suppose his noble soul, his ample 
endowment, his powers for self-improvement, should be literally an- 
nihilated by the broad, iron heel of universal Despotism. 

The nature of man ; the implantation of free impulses and desires ; 
the rising,, breathing hopes of the soul;, the Progress of all Society ; 
the growth and manhood of man, and the instruction of God from 
the Hook of Revelation, all go, as arguments, to demonstrate that ra- 
tional, Christian Freedom is the birthright of universal man ; that a 
Free Government is the rich inheritance of God to man. But this 
noble inheritance has been plundered from man by the sacrilegious 
hand of Tyrants, and in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in South Ameri- 
ca, the millions are crushed. 

But '.lie dawn of a freer destiny is breaking all around the horizon 
of the world. The era of Light of Freedom, of Civil and Religious 
Liberty, will come, and break asunder the green withes of Despot- 
ism, and upheave the Throne of Tyrants from its base. 

in the introduction of this Political and Civil Millennium, it can- 
not be doubled, that the American Nation is not only to herald its 
approach, but to be the chief instrumentality in its introduction, an J 
in perpetuating its golden reign. 

This is not a hypothesis. The future is revealed from the past, and 
in the light of the present. What is the testimony gathered from 
past influences, and in the present relations of the American Na- 
tion"? Has not our Free Government startled every King on his 
Throne, and jostled the Crown on his head 1 Have not European 
Despots formed a league to overthrow the Government of the United 
States'? Its example, says one of the Aristocracy of Europe, will 
cause no Prince to be safe on his Throne. 

The pressure of the force projected by our Free Civil Governments 
$ already felt, The Eleqtro-Magnetic wires of Freedom,, have form 



21 

ed a communication between us and every Government in Europe - 
The circulation for the passage of Freedom is complete. American 
Institutions are the Machines that send the electric influence of Civ- 
il Liberty across Oceans and Continents, and is shaking every Throne 
in Europe. Is it not so '! If not, what means that confederation of 
Despotism to counteract and prevent the free expansion of American 
Libe'ty! What is the interpretation of that agitation — that sup- 
pressed, yet deep-heaving breath that escapes from the heart of those 
down-trodden Masses ? Why are millions, wearied with Despotic 
Governments, flying in clouds to shelter under the protecting foliage 
of the Tree of American Liberty. 

These are signs in the Political Zodiac of the world, and what is 
the meaning? Are they not the prophetic harbingers ol a future 
Universal, Free, Civil Millennium? Do they not indicate the mis- 
sion of our Free Civil Government in giving Republican Institutions 
to the world ; in disenthralling universal man from the shackles of 
Tyranny, and investing him with all the attributes of free thought, 
true independence, rational liberty, and the blessing of a Free Gov- 
ernment'? "It appears to me," says an English writer, "to be the 
mission of the American Nation to bring their intelligence, their 
free principles, and free Press to bear directly on Europe in aid of 
Freedom wherever it may be promoted." 

This is undoubtedly one of the great missions of the American Na- 
tion. And let our people be true to themselves, true to the magni- 
tude of those great interests committed to their keeping, true to fu- 
ture generations, and to Liberty and God, and the mission ol the A- 
merican Nation will be accomplished, the Jubilee of Freedom sung 
by an emancipated world, and God, in this new creation, begin his 
reign over a ransomed world. 

Reader, are you a fiee citizen of this Free Common wealth_? Prize 
it. It is the giftof God. But remember your debt of gratitude, your 
obligations. Preserve these institutions — reared upon the blood and 
toils of your Puritan ancestors and Revolutionary Patriots — and hand 
them down to your children unimpaired. But remember that while 
you may justly pride yourself on being a free citizen of the Govern- 
ment of these United States, it is infinitely better to be free from sin, 
and a citizen in the Spiritual Kingdom of God. 



SECOND DISCOURSE, 



HIE TRUE ELEMENTS Of A NATION'S GREATNESS AND 

GROWTH. 



"Keep therefore ajid do them; for this is your wisdom anl your understanding 
in the sighl of the nation*, which shall hear all these statutes am) °ay, Surely this 
gn al nation is a wise and understanding | eople, If the- Son therefore shall uiakj 
\ ou free, v e >hall b - free indeed." — Deuterunoniv 4: 6 - -John 8 : 36. 



The progress and destiny of Nations involve the dignity and man- 
hood of the Human Race. Human Destiny is wrought out by the 
power of National agencies. On the swelling tide of Nations, in 
their vast movements, is borne along all the great interests of hu- 
manity. The agencies which accomplish the elevation of the one, 
carry forward the other to the same commanding point. There is 
no separation between them. In sympathy, in principle, in growth 
and maturity, they are joined in bonds of indissoluble indentity. — 
They move together; their progress is equal; and their destiny one 
and indivisible. This Union was consummated by God Himself. It 
is the established arrangement of the Supreme Ruler of Nations. — 
God is most deeply interested in the true Destiny of man. That 
path is broadly, plainly marked out by Deity. He has opened that 
path, and directed the Human Race to go on, and accomplish that 
Destiny of growth and greatness, to which they are entitled by the 
rights of God, delegated to man ; and by all the mighty interests of 
humanity. To give a realization and a full and final accomplish- 
ment to this Divine manifest Destiny, God, almost in the very com- 
mencement of our race, grouped off the family of man, into dis- 
tinct and independent Nations. Society, under the Providential di- 
rection of God, was broken up, and those disunited elements, find- 
ing a nucleus, flowed together, and chrystalized in the compact form 
of Nations. 

We are at no loss to read the interpretation of this act on the part 
of God. He had in view the great interests of the Human Race. — 
He thus arranged man, and brought out the requisite instrumentali- 
ties for the ultimate fulfilment of the true Dignity and Destiny of our 



23 

race. lie designed to develope, by National organizations, rind Na- 
tional means, every development necessary for reaching the summit 
of Unman capacity and elevation. Here is involved the necessity 
ami philosophy of Nations, organized into individual and indepen- 
dent compacts. This is the germ which starts forth the vital on- 
ward growth of Humanity, and with it, is identified the progress ot 
the Unman Race. 

It is impossible to conceive how the true Destiny of man. and 
Unman Society could he accomplished, without the existence of Na- 
tions, and of National instrumentalities. It could not he done. — 
ety would stagnate. Man, with all his ample endowments, 
would go backward on the dial plate of progress, and the De 

- Human Race, meet with a fata Facts in the histo- 

ry of Social Progress; the philosophy and laws of Humanity; the 
nature and demands of man, in all the varied complexity of his be- 
ing, and the manifest order of Providence, all indicate, with a moral 
ci rtainty, that the Destiny of the Human Race, is mainly to be ac- 
complished by the agency of Nations, acting with appropriate instru- 
tal ties, cm the interests of man, and bringing into active and 
healthful play (very cause wh .pted to roll forward the Race 

1 path of desiinj which Heaven has marked out. 

-and this destiny involving ever. 
t of humanity ; even human growth and dignity ; 

agency of p ' s;n g with a power ofunequalled maj- 

ty over all Society — is identified with National 
existence and National agencies, it is a problem of the highest mag- 
nitude and most profound interest to all, — what is the basis on w 
a Nation should stand ? How should Nations be organized so as to 
forward the Human Race to the highest elevation '! To state 
the question as plainly as possible, — What are the true elements of a 
t'.\ greatness and growth ? Nations, like men, have an individ- 
■'.uional charade.-. Though their character, as Nations, unlike 
lividtial man, does not pass into the retributions of eterni- 
d come under the final adjudications ol at the Far o 

Justice; yet here in this world, Nations form a character, and 
in this world are rewarded a - led by the God of Nations in 

\ i« w of their National charae 
Whit, then, a?.e ma vr ■ its of a Nation's greatness and 

ml I answer: 

I. A FREE SOIL. 

The Soil of earth is the common inheritance of the race. God is 
the giver and man the receiver. The race received it as the free pat- 



24 

rimony of one common Father, who indulged in no selfish partiality 
towards any of his children. He, as the original Proprietor and own- 
er of all the territory of earth, gave to every man an equal right to 
an equitable share in the general patrimony. This proposition must 
be true if we look at the manifest designs of God in the gift. What 
\va? that design l Undoubtedly to give sustenance to all who should 
occupy the earth as tenants of the one Great Husbandman. The 
soil is the basis of all Progress, It is the prolific mother of every e!e. 
ment of Individual or National Prosperity. The world without food, 
and a liberal supply, too, cannot make any advancement in any de- 
partment. Every spindle, every wheH, every engine, every imple- 
ment in the great Workshops of the Artisan Mechanics must cease 
their hum without food. Not only the very hands who run the ma- 
chinery of the world, are dependent on the Soil for strength to do 
their work ; but the iron and wood out of which all machinery is 
built, and the very oil which lubricates that machinery comes from 
the Soil. The whole stupendous scheme of physical enterprise, em- 
bracing every agent of Progress and prosperity, has its original basis 
in the Soil. 

The Moral, the Educational, the Religious Departments are, equal- 
ly as the Physical, dependent on the Soil for their advancement. — 
There is no such thing as Progress in any department of Society in- 
dependent of the Soil. It is the first motive power that starts 
and moves every wheel of enterprise and progress in all the complex 
structure of Society. This is a well settled law in the Science of Po- 
litical economy. Food is the only thing that can sustain the life of 
universal Society ; and food flows from the Soil of the earth. 

Sustaining this essential relation to Human Destiny and Progress, 
there are two facts which follow as corollaries, or propositions of self- 
evident truths, as connected with the designs of God in reference vo 
the Soil, bequeathed as a common inheritance to the Pvace. Trie first 
is this, viz: That no man, no Nation have, the right to monopolize 
the Soil so that the rest of the world shall not have a requisite 6hare 
for the production of food to sustain life. True, every man may not 
be, according to the conventional arrangements of Society, a legal 
owner of a portion of the Soil. He cannot claim it unless he is en- 
titled to it, and he is not entitled to it unless he has earned it. Indo- 
lence, prodigality, want of forethought, are sufficient causes why 
men and Nations should forfeit their right in the Soil as the patrimo 
ny from God ; yet a right forfeited does not annul the existence of an 
original one. Still this does not conflict with the position that God 
intended the Soil for the sustentation of unloersal man, and that men 



25 

nor Nations have no right to appropriate so much Soil to their occu- 
pation as to prevent the other portions of the human family from re- 
ceiving food requisite for all the purposes of human existence and 
Progress. 

The second fact evinced in the designs of God as related to the 
Soil is this : That the producing agents must be so applied to the Soil 
so as to cause it to yield the largest amount of productive fruit. The 
Soil, like everything else, is capable of being made more or less pro- 
ductive. It has the elements of re-production and development on 
the most liberal scale, by the process of right cultivation ; and those 
elements, too, can from bad tillage, or the application of bad agents, 
lie dormant, or only be partially productive. 

We are not left to guess what the design of God is on this point. — 
Harmonizing with all the benevolent designs of God, the Soil was in- 
tended, and the capacity bestowed, to bring forth in the largest 
abundance. That this was the manifest purpose of God in giving 
this noble patrimony to the Human Race, is-evideni from the consid- 
eration that it falls in with the general plan of His Universe, and 
more especially, it exhibits His Paternal benevolence in providing 
food for the whole Race, Fears, sometimes have been expressed that 
the rapidly increasing population of earth would exceed the means 
of sustentation. If the population of the earth were to turn war- 
riors, and war be the game at which most of the Nations would play, 
this dreadful dilemma would come. Eut let the Human Race go on 
in the true destiny described for it; let Peace cover with her genial 
wings the whole family of Nations; let the Arts be brought to the 
highest attainable point of cultivation ; let Population increase with 
even more rapidity than it ever has done, yet there would be no dan- 
ger but that the means of sustentation would be fully adequate to 
the demands of all the hundreds oi millions who might, at one time, 
be crowded together on the Globe. And the reason is this: That 
then every foot of Soil would be brought to the highest state of cul- 
tivation, and yield the highest possible amount of food. This fact 
would be seen either by the world or by a single Nation. 

What, then, is the great developing agent of the Soil 1 ! Under 
what influences will every inch of Soil start forth buds of abundant 
fruit, and roll into the lap of Nations the most abundant materials for 
food ? This is a great question, — a vital question in the accomplish- 
ment of Human Destiny. It is aquestion which demands the study 
of every Citizen, of every Civilian, of every Politician. The 
question as to what agent will walk over the broad Soil of earth, and 
make that Soil teem with the most abundant and richest fruit! And 

3 



26 

what is it? That agent is Freedom. Yes! consecrate your soil to 
perpetual Freedom ; let your National Territory be the noble Domain 
where the wings of Freedom shall unfold their sheltering asgis: let the 
free, wholesome breath that comes from the healthy Uing9 of Free- 
dom pass over a Free Soil, and that Soil, as if touched by some mag- 
ic power, will yield its full and heaviest crops for the sustentation of 
the entire Nation, Freedom is the power that stirs every inch of Soil, 
that replenishes the waste and worn out Soil of earth with a fresh 
producing life ; it fills your granaries with corn, your Vineyards with 
fruit, and makes every Press burst forth with new Wine. 

Is not this the Philosophy of Freedom? Does not its geniusand pow- 
er, along with all its other achievements, accomplish this great re- 
sult on the Soil? What are the fixed facts brought out in the whole pro- 
gress of the Human Race? Go back to the beginning. Plant your- 
self in the Eden Paradise of man. From that point travel down the 
stream of time, and watch the Developments and Progress of every 
Nation, and then decide if a Free Soil, baptized with the pure wa- 
ters of Freedom, is not the Soil which yields the highest fold, and 
does the most for the Progress of our Race, and for the accomplish- 
ment of Human Destiny. Historical facts confirm this great truth. 
This is the positive side of the argument. Pass over to the nega- 
tive, and what does that teach about a Free Soil. The negative is* 
that Soil where slavery exists. Here, too, stand at the headway of 
Time and look down the rolling stream, and see if that Nation whose 
Soil is consecrated to Slavery, is not a Soil congealed, and hardened 
and unproductive, in comparison with the Soil of Freedom. 

Such is the malign influence of Slavery, that the very moment it 
touches the richest Soil of earth, it takes out the re-producing life of 
that Soil ; and soon, very soon, the Soil of earth, made rich by God 
himself, and possessing original elements of great re-production, is 
brought to a state of unfruitfulness and sterility. 

Is not this the result where Slavery reigns? Does not every Na 
tion, where the curse of Slavery exists, or has existed, confirm the 
truth that even the Soil itself is cursed for Slavery's sake. It 
seems as if the craven genius of universal blight falls like the Angel 
of Death on the very Soil where Freedom does not reign. There are 
the vapors of National disease and death. Ireland has been in bond- 
age, though her noble sons have never yet been reduced to actua 
Slavery, yet the breath of Freedom has been dreadfully stifled there 
And what is the result ? Her Soil, capable under the clear sunshine 
of the Sun of Freedom, of giving food to as many millions more than 



27 

now tread her Emerald Isle ; yet, crushed by Despotism, the cry of 
her millions is, Give us bread, give u* bread! 

We need not tread on Foreign Soil to find a practical demonstra- 
tion of this great fact. The statistics of our Nation furnish abund- 
ant evidence of this great problem. Compare the Free Soil of the 
North, with the Soil of Slavery in the South ; the New England 
States with the Southern States. The Soil of the one is sterile and un- 
productive in its natural state, and has a climate bleak and cold ; the 
soil of the other is naturally rich and fertile, with a climate mild and 
congenial for abundant production. Yet with all these natural dis- 
advantages against the former, and advantages in favor of the latter, 
the rocky Soil of New England produces a hundred fold more than 
the rich Soil of the South. And why this vast difference'? The 
reason is obvious. The Soil of the North is a Soil where the living 
breath of Freedom is wakeful and vigilant; the Soil of the South is 
a Soil withered, parched up, by the the frost-killing, blighting spirit 
of Slavery. 

On this point listen to the word of Gouverneur Morris, one of the 
brilliant Statesmen of our Revolutionary period. In 1787, in the Na- 
tional Convention, when the sages were constructing our admirable 
Constitution, he said: "Compare the Free regions of the Middle 
States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and 
happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which over- 
spread the barren wastes of Virginia and Maryland, and other States 
having Slaves. The moment you leave the Free States and enter 
the Slave States, the effects of the institution become visible. Ev- 
ery step you take through the great regions of Slaves presents a des- 
ert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched be- 
ings." Sixty years after, Senator Preston, in his seat in Congress, 
confirmed what Gouverneur Morris had said before him. In Massa- 
chusetts he said the Soil was under the highest State of cultivation — 
thrift, industry and improvement were abounding on every side ; — 
whilst in South Carolina, the natural garden of our Nation, the Soil 
was sterile, unproductive, and desolation reigned over that sunny 
region. 

Not only in our country, but in every country and in every age, 
this instructive fact is evolved and established. If there is one fact 
in the Science of Political Economy established, it is the fact that 
that Soil consecrated to freedom, is a soil where the highest and 
richest cultivation prevails, where it teems with life and fruitfulness ; 
and a Soil, no matter how rich, cursed with Slavery, has the lines 
of emptiness and desolation drawn over it. 



28 

With these lessons, taught by all History and all experience, let 
us ask in what the true Fame, and Greatness, and Growth of a Na- 
tion consists, in regard to its Soil ? Is it not to consecrate every foot 
of her Soil to universal and perpetual Freedom ? To let the unfet- 
tered genius of Freedom make her noble imprints on every rood of 
Territory, and exert her magic wand of re-producing power, so that 
the Soil of a Nation shall rise to the highest attainable point of cul- 
tivation and production? Is the Soil the basis of all wealth? Is it 
the original spring of all enterprize? Does Human Progress sustain 
an inseparable relation to the Soil ? Is the destiny and elevation of 
a Nation involved in the fruits of the Soil ! Does our Mother Soil re- 
joice, and bud, and blossom, and bring forth most plentifully, under 
the genius of Freedom? Are these axioms in the Science of Agri- 
culture, of Political Economy, and of Humanity true? Then the 
highest glory, and truest grandeur of a Nation, is first of all. to bring 
her Soil to the Baptismal Fount of Freedom, and there, in the name 
of Humanity, consecrate it to this Divine Principle. 

But there is still another fact that shows the path of National great- 
ness, on this point. It is the glory that flows from carrying out the 
designs of God. God himselt consecrated the Soil of earth to Free- 
dom ; to be occupied and tilled only by free hands. It would be the 
blackest impeachment of the Character of God, to suppose that he 
would create the Soil for Nations to occupy; leave it as a patrimony to 
the Race, and then give a warrant to any nation to entail so heavy a 
curse as slavery upon it. It cannot be. The very idea is utterly ab- 
horrent to every just view of God. He designed the Territory of earth 
to be a Free Territory, and to be tilled only by the Sons of Freedom. 
What a glory, then, how true to a noble destiny for every Nation to 
fulfil the wise designs of God ? And this day the Nation's are rush- 
ing with a spontaneous impulse to the fulfilment of God's benevolent 
designs in reference to the Soil. They, under the electric power of 
Freedom, are emancipating the Soil from Slavery, and acquiring a 
fresh and lasting fame in the possession of a Free Territory. That 
path, and that alone, will lead all the Nations to a sublime destiny of 
greatness. 

The question has a magnitude and an interest to us and our Na- 
tion at this very moment of surpassing importance. It is the great 
question of our age and Nation. As a Nation, we boast of our Free- 
dom, our Civilization, and our Christianity ; yet there is a fierce strug- 
gle whether a portion of our Territory shall be Free or not. As a 
great moral question, it is my province to discuss it, and utterly con- 
demn that policy which should consign any portion of our Free Ter- 



29 

ritory to the withering blight of perpetual Slavery. It rises infinite- 
ly superior to all party considerations. It is a question involving the 
dignity, and true fame, and vital prosperity of our Nation, and eve- 
ry man who has one spark of Patriotism left should enter his eternal 
protest against it. What [ shall it be, that in the Nineteenth Centu- 
ry ; in an age of rapid progress, under the broad blaze of the Sun 
of American Freedom, that we as a Nation shall wheel round in the 
backward track of Progress, and consent that one inch of our Free 
Territory shall be darkened by the lurid cloud of Slavery? 

No ! — duty, interest, fame, destiny, the free spirit of the age. hu- 
manity, and a Holy Pieligion, all demand that we should have a Free 
Soil and Free Territory. This is one of the true elements of our Na- 
tional greatness and growth. 

II. A YREE PEOPLE IS A SECOND TRUK ELEMENT OF A NATION'S GREATNESS 
AND GROWTH. 

Nations are but men associated into voluntary compact. The or- 
ation of Nations into independent divisions, is based on the nu- 
merical existence of men. The existence-of Territory does not ne- 
,rily prove the existence of a Nation. The Soil once obtained 
- --.are men to walk upon it, and these men mark off the So 
to National divisions: so that the people, after all, constitute the ex- 
i ti organization of Nations. This fact leads us to ini 
* are the relations and influences of the people to and o\ 
■ /ill They are the occupants and tillers of the Soil, They de- 
• the resources of a Nation. They produce Natii [th. — 

make discoveries in the Arts and Sciences, and . m to 

levalion, comfort, and civilization of the Nation. They are the 
■ials from which genius is elaborated, and all the noble grand- 
t is developed. They form the only body out of which 
,ver and better humanity i^ to rise. They constitute laws ; en - 
ate Governments, and control the destinies of a Nation. Whatso- 
ever of growth, of progress, of elevation, of power, of education, of 
civilization and prosperity a Nation may possess, it ali comes from 
the people of that Nation. They are the solid materials out of which 
every specimen of beauty and glory must be wrought. 

The people, too, in their personal identity, are endowed with sus- 
ceptibilities of unlimited growth. Their physical form, their moral 
character, their minds and rehgious nature, are all capable of progress 
and maturity. Under proper and genial influences, the people of 
every nation may rise to a manhood of intellectual greatness,, of mor- 
al excellence, of high Christian attainments, and thus become the 
true glory, and the highest ornaments, and the solid strength of the 

3* 



30 

Nation. In the language of a noble Ode, written by that accom- 
plished Jurist, and Christian Scholar, Sir William Jones — 

What constitutes a State? 
JNiot high-raised battlement ©r labored mound. 

Thick wall or moated gate; 
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned, 

Not Bays and broad-armed ports, 
Where, laughing at the storm, rich Navies ride; 

Not starred and spangled courts. 
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 

No\ — men, high-minded men, 
With powers as far above dull brute3 endued, 

In forest, brake, or den. 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; 

Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, 

Prevent the long-aimed blow, 
And crush the Tyrant while they rend the chain: 

These constitute a State. 

Here the question arises, under what system and influences, sha'.. 
this nobler growth of men arise'? For someone has said truly, It 
matters but little what kind of cattle and horses a soil may breed, so 
it breeds a noble growth of men. What, then, is the agent that 
brings up to maturity a noble race of men ] Is it a genial climate ?- 
Is it a rich Soil? Is it asunny sky ? No ; — not these ; but Freedom, 
Yes, 'tis Freedom ! 

This is the genial, life-invigorating power that produces and ma- 
tures to manhood a noble race of men. This is the atmosphere that 
gives health, and vigor, and progress to the whole nature of a peo- 
ple. It is a free spirit that imparts nourishment to the soul, and ex- 
pansion to the intellect. Without it, the whole manhood of man 
droops and dies. Without it, a people are robbed of their dignity 
and life. 

"For what is life: 



'Tia net to walk about and draw fresh air 
From time to time, and gaze upon the Sun. 
'Tis to be Free. When Liberty is gona. 
Life grows insipid, and has lost its relish." 

Mark the kind philosophy of Freedom, as it breathes like the sweet 
gales of Spring, over a Nation of Freemen. It gives the fresh 
breath of inspiration to genius. It unlocks all the hidden mysteries 
if mind. It gives a quick perception for new inventions in every 
department of Science, and industrial labor. It creates the wisest 
r-ystems of Education. It gives the richest tones of purity to mora! 
character. It gives the most efficient power to the religious senti- 
ment. It puts strong new springs of enterprise into the actions of 
all the people. It awakens to new life every energy, and starts forth 



31 

a people with a fresh spirit, in the great race of Human Progress and 
Destiny. 

This is the genius and philosophy of Freedom. These are the 
agents and influences that create a noble people, and make a people 
great and happy. These create great ideas, great Orators, great Po- 
ets, great Statesmen, and a great People. The Free States in our 
Nation, are conclusive evidences of the power of Freedom to make 
a great people. Compare the Free Sons of the North with their 
brethren oi the South, who live under a sunnier sky, but feel the 
alight of Slavery. In every department ; in Science, in the Arts, in 
Education, in the world of Literature, in Eloquence, in Oratory, in Po- 
etry, in Statesmanship, in Moral Character, in Christian attainments 
and enterprize ; — in everything that goes to make a people happy or 
great, the Free North is far above the South. This result is not be- 
cause there is not as good a natural growth of men there, as in the 
Free States ; but it is the absence of the spirit of true Freedom, and 
the presence of Slavery, the spirit of which is withering to every el- 
ment that elevates a people. The same result is found in every Na- 
tion where any form of despotism reigns. Italy, Spain, and all the 
Nations of Europe ara instructive witnesses to this fact. This is a 
great truth in the Science of Humanity : Slavery makes a Nation of 
dwarfs; Freedom a Nation of Giants; Giants in every element of 
manhood and greatness. 

With this fact written on the imperishable records of every Na- 
tion, need the question be asked, What is the true element of a Na- 
tion's greatness 1 Is a Nation truly great when her Territory is cov- 
ered with a noble race of men! Does a Free people constitute one 
of the chief glories of a Nation 1 and does Freedom give that great- 
ness to a people"? Then, by all the motives of National Fame, every 
Nation should unfold- ihe outspreading Banner of Freedom, and have 
none but Freemen to repose under its ample folds. 

Tit. A FREE GOVERNMENT IS ANOTHER TRUE ELEMENT OF A NATION'S GREAT- 
NESS AND GROWTH. 

The existence of Government arises from the wants and necessi- 
ties of the people. A people without Government make no progress 
in civilization, or in any element of National growth. They remain 
stationary in all improvement, or collapse from bad to worse. Hence 
it is that the imperative exigencies of society, and the wants of in- 
dividual man, call for the existence of Civil Government. We need 
not discuss at length the relation of Civil Government to the true 
destiny and Progress of the Human Race. It is sufficient to state 
that Government is essential to the progress of Nations in every ele- 



32 

merit of growth and greatness. It is '.he controlling power of a Na- 
tion. It directp the energies of a people, and gives development to 
those energies. It shields and secures the rights of every man, and 
leaves him free to act, so that he does not conflict with the majesty of 
the law, and the operations of the Government. The history and 
results of all Human Governments demonstrate the wide and unlim 
ited range of influence which Government holds over a people. 
The people rise and fall with the Government. A corrupt, degen- 
erate Government will produce a degenerate Nation. So, a wise 
and pure Government will elevate the people and heighten the great- 
ness of the Nation. 

Without entering into an examination of the comparative merits 
or demerits of the various forms of Governments, and their respec- 
tive adaptation to makeaNation prosperous and great, it will be suf- 
ficient 10 state that a Free Government, based on Free Principles, 
must be superior to all others in carrying forward a Nation to the 
highest pinnacle of growth and greatness. It is more perfectly i 
nature of man. It extends its Free Legislation in the sir. 
impartiality over all. Its beneficent ini i are alike enjoyed by 

all, and with a liberal broad-cast hand, a truly Free Government scat- 
its and equal pri It stretches its arm of power 
to the lowest peasant as well as to the noblest citizen, and with the 
■ force of its laws and institutions, givest the largest ran 

ent with the vigorous operatic e Government 

. and the good of th 
Such a Government must not only secure t - of every 

zen, and protect them from invasion, but will imbue the heart of the 

tv arm of enterprize, with a resistless power to 
rate and grow to maturity all the elements of a Nation's great] 
is the philosophy and results of Free Governments. The 1 

■ iih these triumphal conquests. Our Nation is a glo- 
evidence what a Free Government can accomplish for a people 

is friction on the wheels, and causes that disturb 
novemenls of the Government, yet it is the freest Govern- 
on earth ; and under its action we have rolled, with startling raj 
».v, up the pathway of National greatness. It has developed the ele- 
ments of growth, so that the Nations of earth say of us as was said 
of the Jewish Nation : "Surely this great JVation is a wise and under- 
standing people." 

But the reader is referred to the discourse on the "Designs of God in 
raising up the American Nation," for a more extended discussion .: 
the nature and results of a Free Government. 



33 

IV. A FREE PRESS IS A FOURTH ELEMENT IN THE TRUE GREATNESS AND 
GROWTH OF A NATION. 

There is nothing that more clearly marks the lines of division be- 
tween the regions of Barbarism and Civilization ; between Despot- 
ism and Freedom, than the Press. Map off the Nations of the earth 
with dark and bright colors, and the dark colors will invariably repre- 
sent the absence of the Printing Press, and the bright, the presence 
of the Press; and all the mingled shades of light and darkness, are 
its comparative freedom and restriction. 

It is a law of human progress ; a law of Divine Providence, that 
nations must have the Printing Press, Dik and Type, in order to ac- 
complish their noblest destiny, and highest elevation. The discovery 
of the Art of Printing was the herald of a new Era to the nations. 
It broke up the deep abysses of human darkness, it lifted up the flood 
gates of truth, and over the nations poured floods of light. Nations 
started afresh in the race of progressive improvement, and ever since, 
at a double quick time, have been marching in the track of a nobler 
destiny. 

Survey the relations of a Free Press to a nation ascending ihe 
pathway of progress and greatness. It gives wings on which thoughts 
can fly. What are thoughts, great ideas, and great truths worth 
without circulation ? The Press is the great distributing agent, by 
which the thoughts of a nation are put into free circulation. It is a 
motive power to draw out the entire aggregate intellect of a nation. 
What is intellect worth In adding glory to a nation, unless it is de- 
veloped and cultivated] It is one of the most effective agents in 
spreading abroad over a nation moral influences. It records the na- 
tion's triumphs in Literature, in Science, in Art, in Law, in Govern- 
ment, and in social civilization. 

It sends forth the awakening spirit of Freedom over a nation. 
When the fires of freedom are about to expire, the Press blazes up 
the dying embers, and on every hill top those fires again blaze up. 
It stands a lynx eyed sentinel on every watch tower of danger, and 
when the enemies oi freedom are coming with a stealthy tread, the 
Press rings the alarm bell, and brings every son of freedom to his post 
of duty- It discusses every line of National Policy. It helps to cre- 
ate every wave in the vast ocean of public opinion. It pours out a 
constant stream of intelligence, and in ten thousand ways, contri- 
butes to the true glory and greatness of a nation. The destiny of no 
nation can be attained without the press. It is the mighty engine 
of national power and elevation. 

But to accomplish these glorious triumphs the Press must be free. 



34 

Shackle the press; bind its free spirit, and the moral power and use- 
fulness or* the Press is destroyed. What, I ask, is a craven, servile 
Press worth to a nation'? A Press afraid to speak out on every sub- 
ject it pleases to discuss'? Nothing! absolutely nothing. There are 
abuses connected with the Press, but a thousand times better to suffer 
them than to fetter and clogthe Press, A Free Press is the glory of 
any nation. It is one of the elements of National greatness. De- 
stroy the freedom of the Press, and you pluck one of the brightest 
jewels from the diadem of our naiion's glory. And Freedom, too 
lias a creating power to multiply the Press. It is the great type foun. 
dry of the nation. Free a nation, and that moment, the Printing 
Presses like the plants of spring, will start up all aiound. 
V. A Free Pulpit is still another true element of a nation's 

GREATNESS AND GROWTH. 

The Pulpit is a creating source of vast national power. No engine 
is superior to it, in its adaptedness and capacity to move the great 
currents of society. It is one of the mightiest moral levers in the 
social and civil compact, and, in the formation of National character, 
and the exertion of influences to fix the moral destiny of a nation, 
the Pulpit transcends in power, all other agencies; a throne greater 
than all others. 

That this is a just estimate of the power of the Pulpit, is proven 
from its nature and results. In its range of action, it passes over, 
and presents, an endless variety of topics; and these topics, too, are 
vital to the organic life and progress of society. They are identified 
with all the generous hopes of humanity — with all the moral interests 
of the race. Its genius too is of universal character, and has a practical 
adaptation to the wants ef men and nations. It has a throne every 
where. Under every shady grove — by the side of every river — in 
the rude cabins of the Pioneers of civilization ; and in every village 
and city are Pulpits erected, and from them, broad and pure, do the 
intellectual and moral currents flow upon the great heart of a Nation, 
to give it a freer pulsation of National health and expansion. 

Resides, the Pulpit is in constant action. It is in the moral world, 
what has never been discovered in the natural, a perpetual motion. 
The main lever, or some conjoined wheel or spring in the structure 
of the Pulpit, plays constantly and efficiently, and pumps out of the 
deep gushing fountains of truth, a stream of perpetual influences 
which water the moral wastes of a nation and cause universal vege- 
tation of moral growths to spring up, and to cover thenatioa with a 
spring-like beauty and luxuriance. The results of the Pulpit on social 
regeneration, on the expansion of intellect, on the elevation of mo- 



3S 

rals, and on the higher interests of the spiritual renovation 01 
world, ail history confirms. 

But to accomplish its lull mission, to exert the whole of its broad 
and beneficent influences, the Pulpit must be free and independent. 
If you shackle it, you break the right arm of its power, and throw 
in it the palsy of disease and death. What, I ask, is a Pulpit for ! 
Is it to be the exponent and expression of Individual or National 
thought and feeling ? Is it to reflect the ever varying and crooked 
and muddy current of public opinion 1 Is the Pulpit to stop, before 
it speaks, and ask, what this or that man, this or that community 
likes or dislikes! Are these the oojects for which the Pulpit is built 1 
W so, you might as well put a parrot or an automaton in the Pu i 
or our land, and let them preach whatever the public in their c< 
scension might graciously allow. 

No ! the noble object of the Pulpit is to give utterance to truth ; to 
stand forth as the champion of the right and the true ; to vindicate 
and enforce every law of righteousness, every principle of virtu < ; 
it speaks for God and not for man. It is to give a full, unrestrained 
utterance to whetever God has revealed. These are the ends for 
which the Pulpit was created ; and to fulfill its mission, it must I e 
free. The padlock of silence must not seal its lips on any subject 
which is identified with the moral destinies of humanity, and 
not exclude any thing that goes fur the regeneration of the world, or the 
elevation of the human race. 

The science of morality, in its national and individual aj 
the morals of Politics, as affecting the moral standing of a nation ; 
the spiritual regeneration of men and nations, are themes incun 
on the Pulpit to discuss, because they relate to the haj man 

and the glory and government of God. 

Such a Pulpit, free, untrammelled by fear, or b y p •.ion, 

or human government, is the glory of a nation. It is the • 
bulwark of National strength ; the truest element of a Nation"* 
growth and greatness. For there is not a single influence or pri 
pie that goe6 to augment national prosperity or form a true Natii . 
Character, but what the Pulpit gives it its sympathy and co-opera- 
tion. And, mark, the Pulpit in every age. has been on the side of 
true Freedom. The first wave of Freedom, which rolled on until it 
broke like a swelling flood in our own Revolution, started from the 
Pulpit. The voice of Luther was the-voice of the Pulpit — &nd it was 
the voice of universal Freedom, 



36 

VI. A FREE SPIRIT OF INQUIRY IS ANOTHER TRUE ELEMENT OF A NATION'S 
GREATNESS AND GROWTH. 

The basis of all progress, in men and nations, is found in investi- 
gation. This is the only royal road to eminence in any department. 
You might as soon expect to soar to the sun on a gossamer thread of 
silk, as to soar to any summit of human attainments and greatness 
without investigation. The unalterable condition of ascension in 
the path of national renown, is inquiry, searching, thorough, rigid, 
sifting investigation. See the essential relation of this great principle, 
human progress. It is the power that gives expansion and develop- 
ment to intellect. What is intellect worth, without growth and cul- 
tivation? And what but investigation gives that growth] Inquiry 
is the pioneer of all Truth; the potent discoverer of all Science. 
How is truth discovered, and its rich mines of golden metal laid 
open but by the instrument of thought 1 How are the true Sciences 
in nature, morals, politics, government, religion, discovered but by 
inquiry? Have not all the triumphs of science been won in the bat- 
tle fields of thought. 

And the social and political progress of nations; what engine has 
driven them forward in the track of improvement, but the power 
and spirit of inquiry'? Nations have moved upward to a higher and 
still higher point in the scale of elevation, only by the unfettered 
action of thought and investigation. What is it that invests a nation 
or a community, or an individual, with the loftiest dignity? Is it 
not the use of intellect, in all its comprehending compass of investi- 
gation? What is it that gives a nation influence, character, and re- 
spect abroad? Is it not the wonder-working achievments of intel- 
lect, ranging every field of thought, by a thorough analytical inves- 
tigation? What is it that humanizes society at home — that gives the 
polish of refinement, the genial influences of the literal and orna- 
mental arts ; that hangs around all the pillars of society the festoons 
of graceful beauty; that makes society civilized and refined? Is it 
not thought, exercised in investigation, and thus producing thesu . 
gems, which, set in the coronet of a Nation's Crown, gives it supe- 
rior beauty and brilliancy. 

Such is the genius and such the results of thought, applied to the 
thorough investigation of all subjects which the human intellect 
can reach. And there is no sublimer scene, than to see a nation of 
freemen thus employed; all eager hunters for the prize of truth — all 
inquirers in the great Temple of Science. 

But, such results can only be obtained where every shackle is 
knocked off from intellect. Free thought, and free inquiry, are the 



37 

only agents that can thus roll up a Nation to a pre-eminent posi- 
tion of greatness. Eind the free thoughts of men ; fetter by a cra- 
ven public edict the intellect; chain down the immortal thoughts 
that revolve within ; imprison the freedom of the soul, and make 
men fear to think, and tremble to speak ; and what else do you do 
but 1 lot out the manhood of man ; annihilate his noblest preroga- 
tives, and roll back society to the darkest ages of intellectual and 
moral darkness. No ! in regard to intellect, to thought, to inquiry, 
the noble sentiment of that Christian Poet, Cowper, is true : — 

"All conatiaint, 
Except what wisdom lays on evil men, 
Is evil; hurts the faculties, impede* 
Their progress in the road of Science; blinds 
The eve-sight of discovery ; and begets 
In those that suffer it, a sordid mind, 
Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit 
To be the tenant ot man's noble form." 

And yet how often the case that the free thoughts of men are fet- 
tered by public opinion, and the iron arm of a Tyrannical Govern- 
ment. In Europe, for ages, this spirit of thought has been crush- 
ed ; and even in our own free Nation, have men had to stifle their 
convictions of truth, and give utterance to their thoughts in an up- 
per chamber, or to the winds. But thank God, the day when intel- 
lect can be caged, and thought chained, and free inquiry arrested, is 
passed. The Nations are breaking, like tow before the fire, the fet- 
ters which Tyrants have put on thought, and everywhere a free spir- 
it of inquiry is abroad, investigating all Human Science, all subjects 
relating to Human Progress and destiny. This is the herald of a Na- 
tion's Jubilee and Redemption. It is this that will, and must, give a 
true greatness and a rapid growth to any Nation. It has achieved 
glorious triumphs tor the American Nation. 

VII. A FREE EDUCATION, BASED ON CHRISTIAN 'PRINCIPLES, ISA CARDINAL 
ELEMENT OF A NATION'S GREATNESS AND GROWTH. 

This is the central and cementing power in all true National fame 
and prosperity. A National structure, massive and compact, strong 
and beautiful, must rest on Education, and such an Education, too, 
as will be universal in its range of application, and harmonize and 
solidify all the true interests of the Nation. Ignotance is the fore- 
runner of National degeneracy and destruction. It is like a terrific 
storm of the elements of nature, sweeping before it every object that 
resists its progress, and levelling all the noblest specimens of Art and 
Nature, A feather could no more resist the most terrible war in the 
elements, than a Nation could live and rise above the ravages and re- 
sults of universal ignorance. The History of the World, the rela- 

4 



3$ 

tion of final causes to their final effects, both teaeh this great fact. — 
It would indeed be the climax of all Utopian wildness to attempt to 
raise a people and a Nation to eminence without Education. It 
would be as visionary as to think of erecting a stately palace without 
a foundation. 

In view of this fact, taught by the moral fitness of things, and 
confirmed by all experience, one great object of eveiy Nation must 
be, if it builds for future greatness and perpetuity, to overcome igno- 
rance and depravity by the resisting, expanding forces of Education. 
The children and youth, who swarm like bees over the Hills and 
Vallies of a Nation have every one of them the elements of mischief, 
terrible and extensive, either dormant or active, in their moral being. 
There is no goodness, no conservatory principle in the human heai, 
that will produce a generation of men and women, who, uncultiva- 
ted, will be the safe depositories of National power, and the true 
guardians of National Virtue. Depravity is in every heart, and un- 
subdued, must roll in desolation and ruin, over every interest of the 
Nation. What then is to checkmate ignorance and depravity! — 
What are their natural antagonisms' — their eternal enemies' The 
answer is obvious. It is by applying the forces of Education and 
Virtue ; by pouring the light of knowledge, and the puritj 
principles, into every realm of mental and moral da kness. It is by 
giving to every mind such an Education as will cultivate e 
ment of man's nature, and bring out those efficient infiuene 
sential for the sustainment of National growth and greatness. 

Let us analyze the results of an education based on virtue, and 
universal in its range of action, and thus demonstrate the National 
Problem, which we are laboring to solve. Education, thus National- 
ized, will invest every citizen with the noble elements of dignity 
and true manhood. It will bring on the theatre of National action, 
men of efficient influence and usefulness. It will counteract the 
power of sensualism, and the self-gravitating tendency to vicious 
gratification by the creation of materials of thought and enjoyment. 
One of the greatest causes why individuals and Nations seek the 
gratification of the lower propensities of their nature, is the want of 
inward materials to gratify their^higher nature. Educate a Nation 
and you supply the defect. Education is the universal ilium: . 
on all moral subjects identified with National prosperity. I: gives 
light and perception to the moral sense, and clears off that murky 
obscurity which exists in the National Mind, on those great 
tions of ethics that come up for settlement in the history of National 
Progress ; and also gives the judgment and firmness to decide right 
and act efficiently,. 



Education will make a Nation of thinkers. Want of thought 
radical evil both in Nations and men. Actions are based too much 
011 impulse and excitement ; and such actions are always fraught 
with mischief. Get men to think before they act, and most general- 
ly they will act right. 

It is the education and intelligence of the people that developes 
the physical resources of a Nation, and turns every element to the 
promotion of National aggrandizement and growth, and thus rolls 
with a majestic force a Nation forward in the track ofNational great- 
nesss. Education, too, is the promoter of civilization and refine- 
ment. It gives a sweeter tone to the heart of National Humanity. — ■ 
It polishes the taste and imparts a keen relish for the appreciation 
-and practice of all those mild and essential virtues which embellish 
life, and ornament the Pillars of State. Universal Education is one 
of the strongest bonds of National Patriotism. Virtue and intelli- 
gence are indeed the only basis of a just, true, and generous pat- 
riotism. Without them it degenerates into mere party phrensy and. 
fanaticism, destructive to National integrity. With them, Patriot- 
ism is pure, large-hearted, andeminently conservative in all its influ- 
ence. Education, too, is the auxiliary of Christianity. A Christian 
piety, true to the genius of its origin, is the offspring of light and 
knowledge. The old adage that, Ignorance is the mother of devo- 
tion, is a solecism and a libel on Christianity. Ignorance is the moth- 
er of religions fanaticism; but piety, elevated and true devotion, 
flourishes most vigorously under the culture of intelligence. A Na- 
iion educated, is a Nation under the highest and purest state of 
Christianization. 

This is an imperfect analysis of the relations and results of Edu- 
cation on all the vital interests of a Nation ; and with this analysis, 
let me state two facts of profound interest and importance; facts 
essential to give such an education to the people as the interests of 
Society require. 

One is this : That a National Education musthe thoroughly a Chris- 
tian Education. It was left to the Benevolent genius of Christianity 
to project and reveal the grand idea of Universal Education. It cre- 
ates, nor allows, no educational Aristocracies. It recognizes mind a9 
immortal wherever found. No matter if that mind is in a poor man's 
hovel, or in a rich man's palace; no matter if it has the imprint of 
an ignoble or a noble birth ; the genius and mandate of Christianity 
is. Educate that mind — give it light — imbue it with Christian influen- 
ces. Christianity utterly repudiates, as unworthy not only of Free- 
men, but of men, the narrow notion that there is to be an education 



40 

for the poor as such. No ! the object of Christianity is to educate ali 
indiscriminately ; "all who have faculties for its beneficence to work 
upon ; all who are capable, if neglected, of doing their country mis- 
chief; or, if taught, of doing it good." This is the all-comprehend- 
ing genius of the Gospel; a system that first taught the Universal 
Education of man. 

And we are at no loss to see why this is the cardinal doctrine in 
the social relations of Christianity. It enjoins Universal Education 
as a self-protecting policy. Ignorance has always been the most fa- 
tal enemy to the progress of Christianity ; intelligence has always 
been the promotei of Christian progress. Light is the region where 
Christianity shines the brightest, and has its surest safeguards. — 
Christianity is the bond of union and harmony between the intellect 
and moral affections. It gives the balancing wheel to the whole be- 
ing, and by its presiding power makes all the wheels revolve in har- 
mony with each other, and with those of the State. It is also the direct- 
ing power to right actions. Educate a Nation, give them knowledge, 
and imbue that knowledge with Christian principles and influences, 
and this is the surest guardian that a Nation will act right. Moreo- 
ver, a healthy, steady progress in every department of knowledge is 
accelerated by the expansive forces of Christianity. These views 
caused M. Cousin, a distinguished Philosopher of France, to say : — 
"Christianity, in my eyes, is the best base of popular instruction. — 
I know a little of Europe ; nowhere have I seen good schools for the 
people w,here Christianity was not." Christianity, only, can give a 
Nation a safe, true system of Universal Education. 

The other fact is this: To attain al' the necessary results of Edu- 
cation to a Nation, and tomake Education Universal, it must be free. — 
The gates of knowledge must not be shut against one of all the mil- 
lions who may compose the Nation; and that it may be free, it must be 
taken under the special care of the State. If one subject, above all 
others, demands the unwearied attention and patronage of Govern- 
ment, it is that of Education. Our Nation takes everything else un- 
der its special jurisdiction. It labors for a Free Commerce, and why 
not on a subject of such transcendent importance, labor and legis- 
late for a Free, Universal Education ? Why should not Government 
build Universities, Colleges, Seminaries of Learning, free for all? — 
And above all, why should not Government build up a great and 
sound system of Free Common Schools, where the millions upon mil- 
lions of our children might resort to receive a free, Christian Ed- 
ucation, and thus be fitted to take care of the great interests of our 
Nation'? Why not a tax laid for this special object? If our Nation 



41 

is taxed for purposes less valuable, does not sound policy, and every 
great National interest, imperatively demand taxation for a free, 
Universal Education? 

Do this and you have one of the highest elements of National 
greatness and growth. Do this and the confederacy of our Union is 
safe against every peril. For, in the words of another, "It our coun- 
try would render her Union perpetual ; ifshe would elevate toa lofty 
height the Pillars of her fame, and place herself pre-eminently above 
all other Nations of the present, and of all other times, she must 
draw her example from the Divine being, and take little children in 
her arms, and bless them by giving them" a Free, Universal, Chris* 
tian Education. 

VIII. A FREE CHURCH — THE FAITHFUL REPRESENTATIVE OF A FREE CHRIS- 
TIANITY — IS AN EIGHTH TRUE ELEMENT OF A NATION'S GROWTH 
AND GREATNESS. 

The relations of Christianity to National Character and Prosperity 
are of profound importance, and of essential vitality. To realize 
• relations, let us inquire what is the composition of a Nation's 
Character and Prosperity, and what produces them. It is a self-de- 
monstrated axiom, that a true standard of National Morals, must be 
one of the chief elements in that composition. Nations have a Code 
of Morals, as well as a Code of Honor and Etiquette; and that its 
Code of Morals may be right, it must be formed by a right and true 
standard. 

A Nation to be great and prosperous must have equitable laws, ad- 
ministered with inflexible impartiality and efficiency, and its institu- 
tions be so adapted as to fraternize the whole people into a strong 
Democratic Brotherhood. It must have a true National Patriotism 
— that generous passion, or love for country, that will be quick to 
apprehend National degeneracy, and ready to counteract and arrest it; 
a patriotism that will be universal in its influence and promotive of ev- 
eiy great interest of a Nation. It must be imbued deeply and thor- 
oughly with a love of Freedom. A Nation without Freedom is be- 
reft of the vital elements of growth and prosperity. It must have 
the cardinal elements of Justice, Benevolence, Magnanimity, and 
incorruptible Integrity, as a solid basis on which to stand. It must 
be free from National selfishness, and an over-vaulting ambition. — 
It must puisue a National policy of Peace. War is the Scorpion 
Scourge of a Nation ; destructive to its moral character, and a swift 
forerunner of National degeneracy. A Nation to be great, and hap- 
py, and free, must seek peace and pursue it. It must promote all 
the virtues of Humanity. It must foster Temperance ; practice Fru* 

4* 



42 

gality ; act in conformity to all the laws of moral purity. Above a!!, 
a Nation to have its foundations of greatness and prosperity laid 
deep and solid, must have a pure Religion ; a Religion of faith and 
practice, full of simplicity and efficiency ; a Religion suited to man's 
nature, and which will send its gushing currents of refreshing influ- 
ences over every field in the Social Territory ; a Religion that will 
counteract National depravity ; enforce with authority the sanctions 
of law, and elevate every interest of the Nation. A Nation must 
have a Church, the embodiment of Christian purity and practice; a 
Church independent of the State, and yet allied, by moral relations 
and influences, to the whole fabric of Civil Society. 

These are the elements of composition in the Character and Pros- 
perity of a great and prosperous people. And these elements are 
originated by the genius of Christianity. Here, and here only, are 
these noble productions found. Examine the structure, philosophy, 
laws and results of Christianity, and see if this system of truth does 
not lay down a right standard of morals; if it does not give a model of 
the best laws ; if it does not tend to secure a Democratic Fraterniza- 
tion of the Common Brotherhood ; if it does not enjoin and cultivate 
peace, and promote every cardinal, individual, and National virtue ; 
see if Christianity is not the purest Religion, and has the purest Church 
on earth ; and thus gifted with these Divine Endowment.-, she pours, 
like a majestic river, her rich, beneficent influences, over a nation to. 
bless and exalt it. 

But the full accomplishment of the mission of Christianity on a 
Nation, depends on its Freedom. A Free Church, with a Free Chris- 
tianity, applied to a Free People, must make that people a great Na- 
tion, "a wise and understanding people." Encumber the Church 
with the heavy armor ofSaul — the State; fe tter Christianity by placing 
her in the stocks and straight-jackets of a National Establishment, 
and the Freedom of the Church is not only gonp, but its vital work- 
ing power is destroyed. Look at tiie Church and Christianity in 
England, married by Parliament to the Stale; how weak and lame, 
and feeble. Pass over to Scotland, with a Free Church, represent- 
ing a Free Christianity — how fresh, vigorous, pure and efficient.— 
We have a Free Church, and Free Christianity in our Nation, and be- 
hold the result ; the most efficient, active, working Christianity on 
theGlobe. And in our own Country, where there is the most Free-, 
dom, there is the purest and most efficient Christianity. A Free 
Church, representing a Free Christianity, acted out by Free Men, 
will elevate any Nation to a point of pre-eminent greatness. It will 
have a National growth, such as the world has never seen ; a great. 



43 

ness that will challenge the admiration of the world, and perpetuate 
the true glory of a Nation. 

Pehold these circling, upright Pillars of Freedom. — A Free Soil — 
A Free People — A Free Government — A Free Education, based on 
Christian Principles — A Free Press — A Free Pulpit — A Free Spirit 
of Inquiry, and a Free Church, representing a Free Christianity. — 
Eight Stately Pillars, carved out of the granite rock of truth. Plant 
our Nation on them, and she will stand every shock that may shake 
the world, till Nations shall be lost in Eternity, and men stand at the 
dread Tribunal of God. 

In securing and perpetuating these noble results of Freedom, it is 
esentially requisite that Rulers and People should experience the 
true Freedom of the Gospel, a Freedom from the power of Sin, and 
a Spiritual renovation of their Souls by Christ. "If the Son, there- 
fore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.'''' This spiritual 
Freedom will secure individual happiness, and to our Nation, per- 
petual prosperity. Happy is thai people thai is in. such a case; yea, 
happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Then shall the earth yield 
her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us." 

AMEN. 



THIRD DISCOURSE. 



THE INTEGRITY AND PRESERVATION OF OUR REPUBLI- 
CAN INSTITUTIONS. 



•Wisdom is better than weapons of w ir."— Ec< lesiastes ix, 18 



Patriotism is a Christian sentiment. The basis of it rests on loy- 
alty to God and his government. It is here that the full and fresh 
springtide of its power and purity begins; and from this point it ra- 
diates, and plants its benignant influences deep in the being of man, 
of all generous and holy intelligences. 

The intellectual and holy universe is pervaded by the noble and 
magnanimous feeling of Patriotism. It reigns in the pure hearts of 
all holy beings. It burns as a mastering passion in their souls. Every 
action and thought of their being is thoroughly impregnated with a 
patriotic and loyal allegiance to the moral empire of Jehovah. This 
is the central attribute of their nature. It is this that fixes every 
affection on God. It is this that gives ample enlargement to the 
most generous emotions. It is this that secures their unfaltering 
fidelity to God's government. It is this that maintains the glorious 
integrity and harmony of God's universal empire. It is this that 
gives a moral beauty, and a radiant loveliness to their character, and 
presents a model type for the imitation of man. 

Mark, too, the peculiar, and the noble characteristics of that Pat- 
riotism, that fixes their soul, and fastens their affections with a firm 
grasp on God and His empire. Their patriotism is signalized by its 
universality. The scope of its power embraces the entire range of 
interests that belong to the character of God, the integrity of His 
throne, or the stability of His government. It is marked by that mag- 
nanimous comprehensiveness that watches with jealous vigilance 
every interest that is identified with the vast empire of God. It knows, 
it will have, no local restrictions. The integrity and well being of 
the whole empire of God, is the moral guage of their Patriotism. 



Now, such a Patriotism as this, true, expansive, vigilant and uni- 
versal, must be from God. 

Christianity is from God; and among its other luminous character- 
istics and rich fruits, it is radiant with the form, the spirit, the power 
of a patriotism, truthful, fervent, universal and vigilant. The very 
core of Christianity, is most thoroughly infused with this noble and 
magnanimous passion. It breathes forth its notes of thrilling and 
awakening inspiration from every line and leaf. But mark! the 
patriotism of Christianity is not the patriotism of a parly. It is not 
hedged in by geographical lines, or limited in its operations. It is 
not that patriotism that would sleep over dangers, or cease to raise 
a warning voice, when troops of insiduous foes were lying in am- 
bushall around the country. 

No; no such Patriotism as this can trace its genealogy to the Eible. 
It repudiates it as worthless. The Patriotism of Christianity bears 
another type of character. It is Catholic in its nature. It pours its 
free, pure, exuberant spirit, over every interest of the country. It 
shields, by its expanding and protecting wings, the centre, and the 
whole sweeping circumference of the Nation. It guards the entire 
range of moral and civic interests that enters into and are identified 
with the true, permanent, well-being of the whole Government, of 
the entire Country. 

The Patriotism of Christianity, has no toleration for any thing that 
would sap the foundation of the Government, or destroy the integrity 
of the Nation. It wages an exterminating war on every evil influ- 
ence, covert or open, that would result in the overthrow of that 
government, founded on Republican principles, and the equal rights 
of universal man. The Patriotism of Christianity, aims to maintain 
moral order; to preserve inviolate the integrity of a Nation ; and to 
perpetuate those benign influences and cardinal principles of policy, 
that will enlighten, elevate, save. This is the Patriotism of Christi- 
anity, and no other kind ought to be tolerated for a single moment 
by any generous mind. 

And here, let me direct your marked attention to the spirit and 
genius of this Christian Patriotism in another aspect; it is to the 
creating genius of Christian Patriots, lis noble design is, to create 
and finish the most admirable and perfect specimens of civil Govern- 
ments ; and to build up a great Empire, whose breath and being shall 
beat in universal harmony with the true interests and happiness of 
man; of a man as a social being, as a member of civil society ; as 
living under the moral Government of God. This is the noble aim of 



46 

a Christian's Patriotism. This is one orrand on which the Bible goes, 
on its patriotic pilgrimage round the globe. 

And has it not, I a?k, fulfilled its mission in this respect, where- 
ever the genius of_a Christian Patriotism has been permitted to fa- 
shion and direct human governments. It created the Theocratic 
government of the Jews, a government in its spirit, laws and insti- 
tutions, the most perfectly adapted to preserve the rights of man, 
and to perpetuate the true spirit of liberty, and its blessings to the 
world. 

The civil and political institutions of our own country, can claim 
a legitimate kindredship to Christian Patriotism. It was the inspi- 
ration and genius of a patriotism, created by the spirit and life of 
Christianity, that awoke to life, and fashioned into symmetry and 
beauty, that majestic form of civil government which is the pride of 
American freemen, and the admiration of the world. 

If then the patriotic genius of Christianity, has given creation, 
beauty and form to our Republican Institutions, that which it creates 
it must necessarily seek to preserve and perpetuate. This is the 
generous and spontaneous impulse of Christian truth. It glows and 
beats in the infinite heart of God himself. His infinite intellect has 
created and established a universal moral government, and every 
attribute of God seeks to maintain the integrity of that, which his 
own power and wisdom have created. 

This is the feeling, yea, this is the passion, that burns and beats 
in the heart of the American people. We have, under the genius 
of a Christian Patriotism, created a Civil government, and formed 
Republican institutions, which we believe the best the world ever 
saw. They have given us freedom, elevation, national growth and 
manhood. Hence, that master passion of the American bosom 
Patriotism — love of his country. Hence the desire, the effort of eve- 
ry true American, is that the Integrity of the American Union may 
be maintained, and our Republican Institutions, have perpetual ex- 
ii re. 

We are deeply interested in knowing how, and by what means, 
the integrity ot our government may be secured, and our Republican 
Institutions perpetuated. 

Imbued then with a passionate love and reverence for our coun- 
try, and with heaits glowing with patriotic fervor for our Republican 
Institutions, let us examine what means are essential to the integ- 
rity and perpetuation of our Republican Institutions. 

To give more clearness and definiteness to this important subject 
we shall in the most summary manner, state in the first place, what 
will not preserve and perpetuate our Republican Institutions. 



47 

I. A SIMPLE RELIANCE ON THE THEORY AND STRUCTURE OF OUR CIVIL 

GOVERNMENT, WILL NOT, IN ITSELF, TERPETUATE THE REPUBLICAN 

INSTITUTIONS OF OUR COUNTRY, AND MAINTAIN THEIR INTEGRITY. 

There is no little danger arising from an excessive reverence for 
mere iorm. Indeed, the tendency of human nature is, to transfer 

thought and strength from the inward life to the outward form; to 
admire the admirable external architecture, and not see the life and 
beauty and power within. This is a natural, and almost a universal 
tendency. It is so in the noblest and sublimest of all systems : — that of 
Christianity itself. How much of glory, of beauty, of life, and real 
strength has the Christian Religion been robbed from this fatal biasof 
the mind, to fix the strength and utility of Christianity in the form, 
and not in the inward life. 

There is a noble grandeur, and a stately magnificence, in the mor- 
al Architecture of Christianity, as embodied in its external forms. — 

Lt mere beauty is not power. The symmetry of the exterior form 
is not a safe reliance for durability ; neither has it the elements < f 
practical utility. If the animus, the lii'e within, is gone, Christianity, 
though as a system combining every element of external beauty and 
symmetry of form, would not possess either a perpetuating power, 
or be adapted to man. 

This feeling may enter into the formation of our judgment in re- 
gard to the structure of our Civil Government. The form is admira- 
> [e. The superstructure has beauty, and strength, and civil symme- 
try. It is the noblest specimen of a Political Fabric, or of Civil Archi- 
.' cture the eye of man ever surveyed. The external form infuses a 
glow of admiration and pride into every American heart. Put there 
is danger lurking secretly in this excessive admiration. In Civil Gov- 
ernment, as in the nobler structure of Christianity, form, though 
attractive and beautiful to the eye, in itself has no life, has not the 
power of perpetuation. There must be, behind all this external 
i eauty and well constructed form, the springs of an inward life, to 
give a graceful motion to the form, and to iill it with the elements of 
power. If such is not the case, the nob'e fabric of our Political ; nd 
Civil Institutions must fall. There can be no safe reliance for their 
integrity and preservation on the forms of our Civil Constitutions, in 
themselves considered. 

The same fatal result will overtake our Republican Institutions, if 
we rely on the mere form, as did the Israelites in their campaign 
against the Philistines. When the Ark of the Lord was brought from 
Shiloh into the Camp, the Israelites raised a shout that shook the very 
earth. Presumptuous reliance — a fatal prelude to their destruction. 



48 

The Ark was only an external symbol of the presence of God.-— 
They vainly thought because the form was there, God was there, and 
by a fatal mistake relied on the form, and not on the power and life 
of God within the Ark. The result was a total overthrow. 

Let the American people be impressed from this incident, with a 
great moral lesson. Not to boast on the mere political external Ar- 
chitecture of their institution?; not to rely on mere beauty of form 
to preserve inviolate, the integrity and stability of their govern- 
ment. This, in itself, cannot preserve our Republican Institutions. 
II. Again : reliance on the general diffusion of knowledge, and 

THE UNIVERSALITY OF rOFULAR intelligence, cannot in themselves 

SECURE THE INTEGRITY AND PERPETUATION OF OUR FREE INSTITUTIONS. 

Our admiration for the attainment of mere intellectual knowledge, 
may betray us into wrong conceptions of the relations of knowledge 
to our happiness, and into a false estimate of its real value to men 
or nations. In one sense, we cannot estimate too highly, popular 
intelligence. It is essential to progress in man and in nations. Eut 
the mere possession of knowledge, the corruscations of intellect made 
effecthe and startling by mere intellectual improvement, and the 
attainment of extensive knowledge, lias no conservative power; no- 
thing that binds and cements the fabric of society together. 

True, our admiration is challenged in beholding great intellect 

thing the spell of intellectual enchantment over us, and by the 

terly strokes of their genius, holding the wand of intellectual 

necromancy over vast masses of mind. But, after all, it may be ad- 

niration for a power fitted for the commission of the greatest evil- - . 

v belike a Pyramid of ice, beautiful to behold at a distance, but 

come near it, and the surrounding atmosphere will freeze every thing 

to death. 

So of a nation. The elevation and improvement of the popular 
:r.2ss, by the universal diffusion of mere intellectual knowledge, 
though in its abstract form, a scene of great mental beauty and grati- 
onj one that .-nay provoke rounds of applause; yet after all, it 
has no elements of itself, to preserve the moral life of a nation. It 
has no lightning bands to hold together, into a more compact and 
solid form, the great confederated heart of our Nation. Nay, a reli- 
ance on the mere diffusion of popular intelligence, may and will be 
a fatal precursor to speedy national degeneracy and ruin. The cold, 
ice-like influence, and power of mere knowledge, however widely 
diffused, cannot hold our National Confederacy in compact, or per- 
petuate the integrity of our Republican Institutions. 

And the philosophy of it is obvious enough. It is seen in the very 



49 

nature of causes. Knowledge, in itself, has no permanent, safe, 
moral regulator. It has nothing to direct its giant operations to high 
and true ends, and make them all act as contributors to the public 
good, or conservators of the public morals. Like the Artillery of 
Heaven when the Arm of Omnipotence does not direct it, its bolts 
will fly everywhere, to rend and ravage — so the artillery of mere in- 
tellect and knowledge, without the higher power of moral Omnipo- 
tence to direct it, will and must destroy a Nation. 

RELIANCE ON PHYSICAL REGENERATION ; ON A HIGH AND CULTIVATED 
CONDITION OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES; AND ON NATIONAL IMPROVEMENT-', 
WILL NOT SECURE THE INTEGRITY AND PRESERVATION OF OUR RE- 
PUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS, 

These may be, and are, the external and prima facie evidences of 
enterprize, of refinement, of civilization ; and a measure to ascer- 
tain the height to which the intellect has attained; though they are 
no just criterion to decide on the mental condition of the Mass. — 
For some of the Nations of Antiquity, when the Arts and Sciences 
were cultivated to the highest point, presented the anomalous fact 

f the great mass of the people sunk into utter ignorance ; and their 
morals at the lowest point of the scales ; and at this juncture in the 
treat Empires of Greece and Rome, they were, for all means of Na- 
tional strength, the weakest. 

We deny not the co-binding influence and conservating power 
of physical regeneration, in giving a compact firmness and solid per- 
manency to our National confederation, Provided; Other means go 

aripyssu, hand in hand with' them. It is true that the social and 
ornamental Arts and refinements of life ; the progress of a Nation 
to a high state of civilization ; the means for the intercommunica- 
tion of thought and intelligence; of moral influences and power and 
the proximity with which every part of the Nation is brought to- 
. ther, are facilitated and secured by physical means; by the appli- 
cation of Science to the industrial departments; by a cultivated state 
of the Arts; by Railroads, and Steam Engines, and Magnetic Wires. 
But all this may exist, and yet not result in giving the elements of 
perpetuating life to our Nation. You may give a seeming external 
strength and beauty to a man's body by ornament and art, whilst there 
is within the elements of death. So of a Nation. It may be regen- 
erated by physical means; Science may erect and unfold her treas- 
ures , and Art erect her noblest trophies on every mountain top and 
in every valley ; steam may plow a furrow on every river, and drive 
Engines on millions of Railroad tracks; the wires of your Magnetic 
Te'egraph may stretch round the Nation, and pass in radiating lines 

5 



50 

from the centre to every point of the circumference of our Nation; 
all this may give beauty and admiration to the eye, and yet the great 
perpetuating elements of National life be gone. Is there moral life 
in artificial regeneration ? Does steam, as it purl's its vapors like a 
great cloud of Incense over our Nation, carry with it a life- preserv- 
ing power? Is the Magnetic fluid impregnated with the Divine Elix- 
ir of life to our Nation ? What, I ask, is there in all these., in them- 
selves, to bind together our glorious Institutions, and give the im- 
press of immortality to their existence? 

Ah ! — beware, my Countrymen, of this danger lurking in the path- 
way of your Nation's prosperity, of relying on the artificial orna- 
ments, and of a physical regeneration to give an immortality of ex- 
istence to your Republican Institutions. 

IV. RELIANCE ON GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION, 03 ON EAVORABL 

VANTAGES, CANNOT SECURE THE INTEGRITY AND PERMANENCY ( F OUR 
REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS. 

The God of Nations has given us a Geographical p eition 
Map of the World, eminently advantageous for National greatness. 
We are walled in by great National ramparts. The Eastern iine is 
protected by a strong natural defence, in the mighty waters of the 
Atlantic Ocean, The Western line has a safe-guard in vast- 

er waters of the Pacific. We arc almost literally hemmed in, as Je- 
rusalem was by the Everlasting Hills, by bulwarks thrown up 
mighty Arm of Omnipotence. There is in this a Providential de- 
sign. It is, that here, we might build upa Model Nation, and p i 
Model Institutions for the world, free from European interference, 
and from the voluptuousness of Asiatic influences. That we might 
here cultivate the ornamental and peaceful Arts, perfect our s\ 
of Civil Government, and finish the noblest Structure of Political 
and Civil Architecture the world has ever yet seen. To accomplish 
this great mission, God has not only walled us in by natural bul- 
warks, but he has given us international facilities to aid us. The 
unexampled fertility of American Soil; the blandness of American 
Climate ; and the number and magnificence of American Rivers a.-nd 
Lakes, are natural auxiliaries to aid the American people in the 
fi-knent of their great moral and political mission. - 

But here is not our strength. Though European politics may not, 
nor cannot, nor dare not intermeddle, nor prevent our growth to Na- 
tional manhood, — yet we may fall a prey to our own internal ene 
mies. We may introduce the Trojan horse of National destruction. 
Having no fears from without, because we are girdled by a kind of 
natural Omnipotence, wc may overlook the dangers within, and thus 



51 

our very natural security betray us and overthrow us. There is no 
magic charm in Oceans, or Soil, or Ridges of Alpine Mountains, to 

moral glory, or nioial integrity, or solid permanency to a Nation. 

■ are no reliable safe-guards to our National preservation and 

;i ity. 

V. RELIANCE ON THE EXTENSION OF NATIONAL TERRITORY CANNOT SE- 
CURE THE INTEGRITY OF OUR REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS. 

On this point the lessons of Political History impress some of the 
weightiest political truths. Many are the examples, melancholy and 
instructive, of the fatal policy of Nations in aiming, by conquest or 
otherwise, at an unlimited extension of National Territory. 
Overreaching desire for this sort of National aggrandizement has 
swept Nation after Nation from the Map of the World, and present- 
ed them as instructive monuments of admonition and warning. 

The colossal stature of Rome crumbled and fell from this cause 
prominently. Her dominant and master passion was Territorial 
conquest and extension. This fatal policy wrecked her Giant Em- 
pire, and blotted her out of existence. Greece, too, was by this pol- 
icy, hastened to her crisis and overthrow. The vaulting ambition of 
her Kings, overleaping the limits of her own dominion, pushed her 
onward on a National Conquest for Territory, and it was the signal 
for her overthrow. 

So of more modern Nations. If not actually destroyed, their glo- 
ry has become dim, and their National existence periled from a de- 
vouring desire to "grasp in all the shore." What but this overthrew 
the mightiest Military Chieftain Europe or the world ever saw. Na- 
poleon could have reigned safe on his Throne, if his ambition could 
have been satisfied within the limits of France, There his great 
genius and skill could have withstood the whole allied Armies of Eu- 
rope, But — fatal step — he passed over the Territorial limits of his 
own country, and sought to seat himself on the Throne of European 
Empire, This step humbled France, and hurled that mighty Chief- 
tain from Every Throne, and exiled him a friendless and a fallen He- 
ro, to a lonely Island in the midst of a terriric Ocean. 

There is no problem, in the history of Political Science, more fully 
demonstrated than, Conquest for National Territory either cripples 
a Nation, enfeebles its energies, or utterly destroys it. And the rea- 
lm of it may be se*>n from two great facts. 

The first is, The inefficiency of Civil Government to make its arm 
of power reach, and be felt, over so vast an area. There must be a 
central head to Government. And no matter how much political 
wisdom the head may have, or how mighty the power consolidated 



52 

there, it is impossible to radiate sufficient light, and life, and power, 
from the head to every part of the extremity, to produce health. 
growth, and stability. The great wheels of Civil Government move 
heavily. The majestic force and influence of law, without which no 
political Structure can stand, are weakened, and thus the very main- 
spring of Government is broken, and the element of its life gone. 

This position is sustained by the history of our own country since 
we planted ourselves on the Map of National existence. There wi;.-- 
more solid compactness, more firmness of political texture, more 
hope of permanent endurance, among the first thirteen confederated 
States of our Union, than now, when we have risen to thirty cluster- 
ing Empires. Conflicting interests ; want of homogenity in our peo- 
ple, with various other causes, have come in, cotemporaneous 
with the extension of our Territory, and have increased the causes 
tending to split the integrity of our Government, and to subvert the 
Pillars of our Republican Institutions. 

The second great fact, demonstrating the danger of an unlimited 
extension of Territory, is this, viz : It is always attended with a de- 
parture from Social Purity, and from every element that- exerts a 
consolidating, binding power, on all organized society. Extension 
of Territory is the signal for the introduction of a spirit of emigra- 
tion, and constitutes the era for new settlements in a New Country. 

The natural proclivity and tendency of a people in all new settle- 
ments is to a downward gravitation in morals, in social manners, in 
education, in religion. And nothing but extraordinary efforts will 
prevent Society, under such circumstances from collapsing into a 
slate of barbarism. History, sacred and profane, is full of facts to 
demonstrate this position.* 

The emigration of Abraham from the land of Haran to Canaan, 
though the motive was a religious one, was fraught with a decline 
of Social purity, and the pious simplicity of a Pastoral life. As 
events rolled on, it so happened that Lot and Abraham could not 
dwell together in the same Territorial limits; and Lot, imbued with 
a spirit of emigration, settled in a country well watered and rich — 
Mark the result. Lot and all his descendents, relapsed rapidly into 
a state of Social and Civil barbarism ; and from Lot sprang the wild 
and barbarous race of Moabites. And from Abraham himself, sprang 
Ishmael; and Ishmael is the head of that wild and savage race call- 



*The thought, and to some extent the phraseology., iirreferenre to emigration 
and its results, we are indebted to an admiinble. Discourse, by Dr. Busline!!, ot 
Hartford, Ct., entitled "Barbarism the first DajvGER," and delivered before 
the American Home Missionary Society, in New fork and Boston. The reader 
will find this subject most ably discussed in that discourse, at length. 



53 

ed Arabs-, exiting in ail their barbarity and fierceness to this day. — 
And this tendency to social decline and barbarism, was realized bv 
the Jews as a Nation, as they broke up their settled forms of Govern- 
ment, and had the emigrating spirit. 

The same great and instructive fact is developed in the progress 
of New England history. Notwithstanding, the men who formed 
the new settlements of New England resisted the inherent causes 
of Social decline involved in a new st te of society ; yet even there 
the strong tendency and actual results have been to decline from the 
rigid purity and stern morals of those who first planted their feet on 
New England Soil. 

The same fact looms up en the rolling tide of Western emigration 
as it moves on, wave after wave, to (ill up our extending Western 
Territory. Eastern men cannot endure transplantation to Western 
Soil, without endangering and realizing a decline in Social purity 
and aloo-ening of the moral bands of Society ; and every wave of err ■ 
igration is attended with this and kindred accompanying evils, — 
This is seen in the extraordinary efforts made to counteract this ten- 
dency in Western Society, and in human nature, by the checkma- 
ting influence of education and religion. And as a most striking il- 
lustration of this interesting moral fact, look at Mexico and the South 
American States "That they have been stead ly descending towards 
barbarism, in the loss of the old Castiiian dignity, in the decay of So- 
ciety and manners, and in the general prostration of moral order, 
no one doubts." 

The philosophy of all this decline is easily explained. It resulte 
from the absence of the restraining power of law, and of the moral 
power of organized Society- ft results from the fact that Society 
transplanted, cannot carry its roots with it. Hence the elements of 
new Society lose a great portion of that vital force which is the life- 
g and conservatiug, cementing power of all Social and Civil So- 
ciety. 

It results from the general inattention to the great interests of ed- 
ucation, and the still greater interest? of a pure, practical Christiani- 
ty — two elrm. n's essential to the existence and perpetuation of all 
Civil Governments and organized Society. 

If then our Nation ij prepared for an unlimited extension of Ter- 
ritory, she must encounter all these evils. She must have power and 
m< ans to exterminate them, as the boundaries of her National Do- 
main may enlarge. It is a perilous struggle — a fearful contest, and 
the history of the past, and the nature ot man, and the voice of ex- 
perience, and the experiments of Society, warn us and teach us that 



54 

no reliance can be had for the integrity and preservation of our Re- 
publican Institutions, on the extension of National Territory. Nay 
that this extension, according to the lessons of all past history would 
hasten our downfall, and prove our ruin. 

And this very question of Territory, was one that agitated, with 
profound interest, the minds of those good and great men who form- 
ed our unrivaled system of Government. The vast extent of Ter- 
ritory, over which the Government was to act, created in the mindd 
of our most sagacious Revolutionary Statesmen, fears for its perma- 
nency. "The Natural property of small States is," said a celebrated 
Jurist, "to be governed as a Republic ; of middling ones to be subject 
to a Monarch ; and of large Empires to be swajed by a Despotic 
Prince; and that the consequence is, that, in order to preserve the 
principles of the established Government, the State must be support- 
ed in the extent of Territory it has acquired ; and that the spirit of 
a State will alter in proportion as it extends or contracts its limits." 
All history confirms the truth of this opinion, and hence the fact that 
the Kingdoms of the earth have generally been small. In the day? 
of Abraham there were five Kings in the single Valley of Sodom. — 
Joshua defeated thirty Kings in Palestine. The vast empire of Chi- 
na, now composed of many Provinces, those very Provinces ancient- 
!" T*r? °0ir.~n v Independent JWnr. archies. "The ancient Britons," 
says Bacon, in his Discourses on Government, "had many chiefs in 
a little room, whom the Romans called Kings, for the greater renown 
of their Empire. For many ages Greece was divided into a vast 
number of small and inconsiderable Kingdoms." 

Having now shown what cannot preserve and perpetuate our Re- 
publican Institutions, we pass, in the second place, to a considera- 
tion of the means necessary to maintain the integrity and preserva- 
tion of our Republican Institutions. 

I. THE FIRST ELEMENT FOR THEIR INTEGRITY AND PRESERVATION IS AN 
AN ENLIGHTENED PUBLIC CONSCIENCE. 

The motive power of all human action is fixed within. Actions 
are but the indexes of internal thought, purpose and principle. — 
Hence in the philosophy of man's moral being, the great object and 
desideratum is, to get the moral Constitution, balanced on the immu- 
table and eternal pillars of truth, justice, and moral rectitude. — 
Accomplish this and you have a beautiful harmony between the out- 
ward and inward man. Virtue enthroned on the moral empire with- 
in, will, as its necessary result, produce actions true and virtuous. 
Gain this, and everything is realized for the moral safety of man in- 
dividually; and for the moral harmony and economic well-being of a'.l 



5& 



organized Society. The securement of this great moral object is at- 
tained by the existence, supremacy, and moral legislation of con- 
science. This is the reigning — or designed to be — power in the 
Court of man's intellectual and moral being. It sitg as the ultimate 
umpire on every moral question brought to the Bar of its Judicial 
decisions. It enforces, with Divine authority, the entire range oi 
obligations laid on man, and by a constant pressure, almost Omnipo- 
tent, and Omnipresent, it impels every human being to the full dis- 
charge of every duty, Social, Moral, Civil and Religious. 

Passing over the beneficent results of conscience, to the relations 
of man as a moral being, and as a subject of God's Government, 
look at its relations and results to the moral order and integrity ol 
Civil Government. 

The very basis on which the permanent prosperity and stability 
of all government must rest, is the inviolate supremacy of law; ami 
an unyielding purpose to make the actions of citizens harmon- 
ize with every principle that enters into, and conduces to the well- 
being of civil society. Give to a civil Commonwealth an enlightened 
public conscience, let this great attribute — an attribute common to 
all, legislate over the mora! being of every subject of Government, 
and the necersary result must be, that law, and the sanctions of law, 
will hold their power over '.he nation, its efficiency will be felt, its 
majesty be preserved inviolate, and the universal voice of the nation 
do her homage. 

Moieover, public conscience, enlightned, quick in the vindication 
of right, will so regulate every other affection and principle in the 
being of the citizen as to cause each and all to pour forth influences 
that must go to the preservation of order and stability to Civil Gov- 
ernments. This view alone is sufficient to demonstrate the relation 
of an enlightened conscience to the integrity and perpetuation of 
Republican Institutions. For Republican Governments, above all 
others, must have an orderly, virtuous, law-abiding people. But 
look at another fact. Conscience admits of no wrong doing; it has 
no toleration for any form of evil. Hence, a public conscience, en- 
lightened and vigorous, will rally all its power for the utter extermi- 
nation of all evils that go to paralyze and extinguish the organic and 
vital functions of National life. It is utterly impossible for evils ei- 
ther to exist long, or to subvert the stability of Governmental Insti- 
tutions, where the power of an enlightened public conscience is left 
free to control them. But let the public conscience become blunted, 
inactive, dead, and it will not only connive at evil, but it will sane- 



5t> 

tion and commit evil. This is a presaging f-ign of the decay of pub- 
lic morals, and speedy ruin awaits such a Nation. 

In the light then of these thoughts, we see how essential is the re-' 
la ion of an enlightened public conscience, to the integrity and per- 
petuation ol* our Republican Institutions. It is a moral shield from 
National dangers. It is a reliance more safe and firm, than floating 
navies, or standing armies. It is a solid bulwark, strong enough to 
stand against every great king that may besiege our Nation. It is 
the right arm of National defence, to all our Free Institutions. 
ii. a second means for the integrity and preservation' of ol'r 

Republican Institutions, is a healthy, purified, vigorous public 

opinion. 

Public opinion, in all Repu' lican Governments is the ruling power. 
It revolutionizes the Nation. It tears down and builds up the whole 
c of civil society. It makes and unmakes every code of civ I 
laws. It turns out and puts in every Officer in our Government. 
Indeed, the whole machinery of our Democratic Institutions moves 
upon the pivot of public opinion. This is the basic on which they 
are planted, and the virtue and glory of the theory and practice of 
our civil Institutions. And let us rejoice, and give thanks to God 
that it is so. For, it constitutes us all sovereigns. It invests the 
humblest citizen with the prerogatives and manhood of a true ni 
«uch as God designed him to i . 

The entire action and operations of our National Confederacy, and 
the legislation of all the clustering Empires that revolve in their 
civil orbits around the Central head, are but the true reflection of. 
public opinion. They mirror forth the aggregate opinions and prin- 
ciples of the controlling mass. So that changes in our government 
and all legislation, is the tangible and true representation of public 
opinion. And, there is a moral sublimity in the workings of p 

on under our tree institutions, that may well excite the I - 
of tyrants, and challenge the admiration of all the true lovers of 

Since then public opinion is the power, before which all must I 
since it is the universal monarch, whose genius sways tl 
moral force of our free inst'tutions, we cannot fail to see what organ- 
ic life, what conservating power, what mighty influences for good to 

country, are treasured up in public opinion, healthy, fr< e, \ . 
ous and pure. It is, and must be one of the greatest instrume 
ties in giving perpetuity to our civil government, and a solid integ- 
rity to our Republican Institutions, ilence the imperative duty of 
every patriot to give his support to every institution, the tendency 



57 

and results of which go to make public opinion pure and conserva- 
tive. 
III. Another means to secure the integrity and perpetuity of or?. 

Republican Institutions, is the adoption and rigid adherence to 

a true and right standard of morals in politics. 

Where the entire mass of the people are necessarily called to act. 
and to mingle directly in the affairs of a nation, there is a higher and 
more imperative need, that that action should be regulated by a 
standard of morals, at once high and pure. A deficiency here, is a 
radical one, and' must result in a rapid degeneracy of public morals, 
and sooner or later throw a blighting and a blasting mildew on the 
civil and political Institutions of the Country. The genius and ac- 
tion of our government, makes every man, almost necessarily a po- 
litician. He cannot use wisely the prerogatives given him by his gov- 
ernment, unless he acquaints himself with the politics of the country. 
Being thus brought into actual contact with the practical operation 
of our Government, every citizen is forced to become, to some ex- 
tent, an active politician. 

This fact must give a moral type and character to the whole sys- 
tem and operation of politics. Hence the reason, imperative and 
poweriul, why, in political action, we should, as a people, have a 
true standard of morals; so that all parties — and parties must ne- 
cessarily exist in Republican Governments, and it is for the good of 
the Goverments that they should, for they act as correcting checks 
on each other— may act in a just, honorable, and righteous manner 
towards each other. 

With the tactics, or modus operandi of politics, or politicians, we 
have nothing to do, except as they relate to the great moral interests 
of our country, and go to the overthrow of those institutions built 
on the best blood of American patriotism. As an American citizen, 
as a Christian Patriot, as a Christian Minister, we have the right, it 
is our duty to sit in judgment on the moral bearings of politics and 
politicians, and to show the relation of a true standard of morals in 
politics to the integrity and perpetuity of our Republican Institu- 
tions. That iron creed that would banish a right standard of morals 
from politics, is an intolerent and an anti-Republican creed. It is at 
war with God, and the best interests of our country ; and it require,-; 
no prophetic vision to see that if true morals are separated from poli- 
tics, and the principle that "all is fair in politics" becomes the prin- 
ciple of universal action, the doom of our Nation is written, and ru- 
in is before us. 

But let politics be imbued with a true stand of morala, let our Poli- 



58 

ticians act upon the true and right; be courteous and gentlemanly in 
discussion, in persona! intercourse ; let differences ot opinion on 
great political subjects and lines of National policy exist free from 
the spirit of denunciation and intolerance ; let all this be done, and 
what moral force will be added to other influences, to preserve the 
integrity, and to perpetuate all our Republican Institutions. Then- 
is no over-estimating the importance to the perpetuating and well- 
being of our happy form of Government. It is the imperative duty 
of the Pulpit and the Press, the two great guardians of the moral 
weal of our Nation, to urge, by every possible consideration, the rig- 
id adherence to a true standard of morals, in politics. 

IV. ANOTHER MEANS FOR THE INTEGRITY AND PRESERVATION OF OUR RE- 
PUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS IS THE RIGHT USE OF THE ELECTIVE FEANCH1SE. 

What a poWer is here lodged in the hands of every American. — 
Each man the power to change the political destiny of our Nation, 
cither for weal or wo. 

Permit us to quote the language of one who adorned the Supreme 
Bench of the U. S., and who has shed over law and Civil jurispru- 
dence, the light of a luminous intellect; I mean James Wilson, a Pat- 
riot of the Revolution, and an accomplished Civilian. On the 4th of 
July, 1708, before an immense procession formed in Philadelphia to 
honor the adoption of the present Constitution of the U. S., this em- 
inent Judge said to his assembled Fellow-Citizens: 

"Allow me to direct your attention, in a very particular manner to 
a momentous part, which by. this Constitution every citizen will fre- 
quently be called to act. All those in places of power and trust will 
icted either immediately by the people, or in such a manner that 
appointment will depend ultimately on such immediate election. 
All the derivative movements of Government must spring from the 
original movement of the people at large. If to this they give a suf- 
ficient force, and a just direction, all the others will be governed by 
its controlling power. Of what immense consequence is it then, that 
this primary duty should be faithfully and skilfully discharged, that 
none but wiseand good representatives should be chosen. On the 
faithful and skillful discharge of it, the public happiness or infelicity 
, in every great measure, depend. For, believe me, noGovern- 
.. even the best, can be happily administered by ignorant or vi- 
cious men. Impress it on your minds, in the strongest manner, the 
importance of this great duty. It is the first concoction in politics ; 
if an error is committed here, it can never be corrected in any 
process ; the certain consequence must be disease." 

Admirable and weighty thoughts. Let them be engraven in im- 



59 

shable records on every American heart; and Set every freemen 

leel vhat the ballot box is the sacred depository of a power, that may 

d in glorious harmony and beauty our great national confederacy 

together, and perpetuate to future ages our Republican Institutions. 

■ i ctive franchise is used for the election of hmiat, patri< tic, 

and truly virtuous men to all the offices of the country, it will secure 

ippii st results 10 the Nation. It will secure an administration 

■ Government, directed, not to party ends but to great National 

cts. It will secure the enactment of just and wholesome laws, 

■ give to these laws an indexible firmness over the Nation. It 

give a noble and an honorable vindication to honest worth and 

. le, and a withering rebuke to vice and dishonesty. For, let men 

who seek office, but know, that their moral characters are to 

rdeal of public scrutiny, and to be decided upon in the ballot 
and it will, in every enlightened and moral community, secure 
lection of good and virtuous men. Hence, the high dutv of 
lerican citizen, before he casts his vote, to require, first of 
. every candidate, an upright, honest, moral character. ; 
not this, let the. verdict of the people at the ballot box be against 

For it is indispensable to the well-being and preservatio 
Republican Institutions, that only those who are inf; 

it, and virtuous, should be at the helm of the Nation, and 
very subordinate office. In view of all this, we see the tins] 
importance, and the essential relations of the right use ol 
tive Franchise to the integrity and preservation of the Republi- 
can Institutions of our country. Let then, every man go to the 

vole only for honest, mora! men. "At an election, every citizen 
lid consider the public happiness as depending on his single 

V. Again : A fifth mean's to secure the hjtegjuty and perpetuation 

• UR FREE INSTITUTIONS, IS THE EXTERMINATION OF ALL SYSTEM 
LS, EITHER SOCIAL, MORAL, OR POLITICAL. 

• introduction of evil into the moral Empire of God, brought 
on a crisis of fearful import. It sent a wave of moral sensation from 

throne of Jehovah, through the length and breadth of His uni- 
versal kingdom. It startled His moral universe. It endangered 
r ery existence of Jehovah's moral government ; and there is no 
:, if remedial and adequate means had not been instituted to 
. the giant power of evil, and to exterminate it, it would have 
a disastrous and irreparable shipwreck of His government. 
he action of God in the eradication of evil, conveys an instruo- 
i • lesson, both in regard to the nature of evil, and the unalterable 



60 

necessity that demands its extermination. It teaches, that no form 
of organized society, no social, civil or religious compact, can main- 
tain its integrity, or perpetuate its existence, if the elements of evil 
are within, Those elements must ignite, and explode the fabric in- 
to a thousand fragments. The arm of Omnipotence could not keep 
^ack the concussion. The fearful crisis would come. 

Such, then, being the nature of all evils, if they exist in any com- 
pact, whetherin social organizations, or in civil or political structures 
what is duty ! what is wisdom! Is it to press the viper closer to your 
m, till it strikes its poisonous fangs into the life-blood, and vital 
i of the Body Politic'! Must we cleave to the leprous thing till 
the entire vitals are tainted and eaten up ! Is this duty ! Is this 
wisdom! Or rather, does not duty, wisdom, every obligation of pat- 
riotism demand, and demand in imperative tones, that the virus 
should be extracted and the evils exterminated. The longer it is 
postponed, the more difficult and aggravated the disease will grow. 
• would be the philosophy of a maniac, that would counsel the 
postponement of appropriate remedies, when fever was burning in 
the bones, and boiling in the blood of a diseased man. 

Equally insane is that philosophy, that would counsel the post- 
ponement of the cure of National evils, which were threatning the 
verv existence of the government or even endangering its stability. 
Such counsel is ill-timed, and fatal to the great interests of the 
lion, if followed. 

Asa Nation, we are under the infirmities of a common depravity. 
We have evils, social, moral, and political. Shall we exterminate 
them, or they us! Luxury and national pride, and extravagance 
and dissipation, and licentiousness, are rolling like a flood over us 
as a nation. Shall we not exterminate them, and so remove the ma- 
lignant action of those causes, from the great friction wheels of our 
and social institutions. 

temperance is a social vice, and is imbedded in the civil com- 
pacts of our various governments. It is protected by the strong arm 
of civil law, and canonized in our Courts and Halls of Legislation. 
throwing its fiery floods of death and desolation over the green 
and verdant plains of our country. It is the moral sirocco ot the 
social state. It is the universal disturber of civil society, and pan- 
with a greedy relish to lust and crime. As the Devil is the fa- 
ther of all liars, so Intempeiance is the father of all crime. It is a 
national evil, striking every way; having seven heads and ten horns, 
and when we see its Upas influences, and waves of moral damna- 
tion rolling overour land, shall we not as a nation, demand the utter 



61 

ruination of intemperance, and give it a burial beyond the hope 
resurrection. Does not the integrity, the moral sense of our 
• i demand it, ami the perpetuation of our free institutions re- 
quire it. 

Slavery is an evil, and one of immense magnitude. It is a social, 

a moral, a political evil. It rests like a great incubus on the heart of 

our nation. It stifles the very breathing lungs of cur National life; 

and is threatning to tread out our very existence as a Compact Fed- 

! Nation. It is now rocking and heaving our nation with tre- 

dous concussions. It has eaten up, like the locusts of Egypt. 

. green thing in our Southern Territory. It has corrupted the 

lit y of the moral heart of our Northern Republics. It has put 

entering wedge of disunion, into the otherwise harmonious com- 

f our National Confederacy. It has split asunder, two of the 

. influential and powerful ■ - bodiesin the world, and thus 

increasing the fearful probabilities of the final breaking up of our 

>nal Union, and the division of our glorious Confederacy into 

and conflicting Independent States. Such is the nature and 

sm, that of iw oi' our people, all, 

without hesitation, pronounce it an evil, and a. great evil, 

Xow, the question arises, and the American people cannot blink 

ery other, tall under the exterminating axe 

; enlightened public conscience, and a pure public opinion. 

it must, or it will most certainly result in the dismemberment of 

' "nion, and the overthrow of our glorious Institutions. Remove 

vils of Slavery, dry up the streams of intemperance, check the 

•f luxury and i ition, cultivate the hardy virtues of Frugal!- 

id Temperance, of Justice and Mercy, and let these oil the ma- 

chinery of Civil Governments, and th of our Republican 

ilutions, free from every sot 1, and political evil, will 

roll on without friction, and endure til! time shall end, 

VI. A SIXTH AXD PROMINENT MEANS TO SECURE THE INTEGRITY AND PER- 

rATiON of our Republican Institutions, is the cultivation ov 

FAMILY PIETY, UNDER THE GENIUS OF THE BlBLE. 

The family compact, is the most ancient and honorable on earth. 
Lt was constituted by God himself, and was designed as a symbolical 
representation of Divine Government ; and to be a model for human 
governments. It is now, and has been in all ages, the basis on 
which Civil governments are founded. It is impossible to create, 
and to keep together a Civil compact, independent of the family or- 
ganization. Human affairs could not be carried on, and all sociei* 

6 



62 

must resolve itself into anarchy. Experiments prove this to be the 
fatal result. 

A great Commonwealth is composed of millions of these indepen- 
dent family compacts. And it is obvious to see, that if these inner 
wheels of the social machinery revolve in a right, moral orbit, the 
outer wheels will move harmoniously. These hidden springs with- 
in, will result in beauty, order, and harmony without. In other 
words, if you can make all the families pure and right, your Civil 
Government is safe. 

And now, the question arises, What can make the families of this 
great nation, happy, pure, mora!, and orderly 1 Certainly nothing 
else, but the power and resources of piety, and the cultivation of 
family religion. Here, in the sacred sanctuary of home, must virtue 
and piety exert their holy influences in the purification of these origi- 
nal fountains, and then, every stream that flows from them on soci- 
ety and government, will be eminently healthy and saving. For, 
the cultivation of Family Religion, and the Christian education and 
training of children, involve the whole issues of human happi 
and the well-being of all Civil Governments. 

Let Family Religion nourish — let the children who are to occupy 
this glorious Domain, and to wield the civil and political destinies of 
this great Republic, be trained and educated under Christian influ- 
ences, and all fear of danger to the integrity and perpetuation of our 
Free Institutions will be removed. This will plant the fear of God 
in every heart, it will give right principles of moral action to every 
citizen, and send forth those pious and refreshing influences, that 
will water the tree of American liberty, and cause its roots to fix 
themselves deep in the rich soil, and upward, in lofty grandeur and 
beauty, will rise its branches heavenward, and there in form rna 
tic, in beauty magnificent, in duration perpetual, will that Tree of 
Republican Liberty stand, the pride of every American, and the 
world, if they choose, may come and repose under its sheltering 
foliage. 

Such are some of the means, essential to to the Integrity and Pre- 
servation of our Republican Institutions; and let our Government 
and our people, follow this path of true wisdom, and they will find a 
noble confirmation of the text, that: Wisdom is, indeed, better and 
stronger than weapons of war ; and with hearts of gratitude, we and 
our children, till the latest generation, may say, with a Poet of out- 
own times — 

"Great God ; we thank thee for this homo— 
This boundless birthland of the free. 



Where wanderers from afar may e 
And breathe the air of Liberty ; 
Still may her flowers untrampled spring, 

Her harvests wave, her cities rise ; 
And yet, till time shall lold his wing . 
Remain Earth"- loveliest Para I 



Note.— fact, that all the proof-sheets could n 

xaniined by the Author, as they passed through the Press, a few 
unimportant typographical errors, in orthography and punctua 
which the reader will readily corr 









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